


Got The Whole Damn Nation On Their Knees

by ialpiriel



Series: Shadows Get Long [9]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Disabled Character, Elderly Women Still Being People, F/F, Female-Centric, Gen, Mentally Ill Characters, No One In This Fic Is Heterosexual Besides Maybe The Guys, Primarily Women As Main Characters, Terrorism, implied/referenced abuse/sexual assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2018-11-21 09:21:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 75,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11354514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ialpiriel/pseuds/ialpiriel
Summary: You spend six years ruining lives as a juggernaut of destruction and murder, and then people you care about get you turned around and point you the right direction.Lucinda and Head Vulture set their sights on Caesar, and pick up a few more friends and take out a few more threats along the way.Contains graphic violence and references to past trauma on the part of most major characters.





	1. 90 (Look Out)

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: violence, gore, cannibalism, references to abuse and sexual assault, referenced offscreen death/torture of a child, probably other stuff too. These will all be marked at the start of a chapter.
> 
> This is the final longfic in the series Shadows Get Long. There may be other shortfics--either more epilogue, or something to fill in spaces not touched on in the main fics--but this is it for the long stuff. If this is your introduction to the series, I would highly recommend reading through the rest of it first--this is the capstone emotional and plot development of characters from across the whole series. This fic reaches its full potential with the context offered by the other fics. Please, for your own sake, read them. Also: mind the warnings.
> 
> A song for Chapter One: [X](http://www.sacredharpbremen.org/lieder/026-bis-099/090-look-out)

“There’ve been no reports of her, after she fled Dog Town. None of the women from her contubernium have shown up either--we’ve kept watch on the child’s home in Arizona.” Vulpes stays standing stock-still behind the table. “Original suspicions had her escaping into the NCR, but there’s been no news from them of her capture, no sightings, even. Our other projections have her fleeing east along the Rio Grande--we lost her trail after she and the doctor had traveled southeast for several dozen miles--or south into Mexico.” He finally shifts, brushes at a dirt stain on his cape. “We have scattered, unreliable visual reports of two people matching their very broad descriptions until well into New Mexico, where we lost even that.”

“So they’re outside of our controlled territory,” Caesar sighs. He studies the maps in front of him again. 

“They are,” Vulpes agrees. “We’ve done what we can to round up all the slaves and captures from Lucia’s tribe, as well as the tribes and towns of her contubernium. We have suspicions Lucia is seeking to reunite with any potential remnants of her tribe, in the east. If we can locate where they would be residing…” Vulpes trails off, leans over the map, draws a wobbly circle around most of the shape marked TEXAS, with his finger. “We could send a cohort to destroy whatever resistance they may be building.”

“Were they even a tribe?” Caesar asks, reaches for the folder marked LUCIA - 2277 to 2282. He flips it open, finds the packet marked BACKGROUND, opens it to the first page. “Her file says it wasn’t even a tribe, just a group of women.”

Vulpes sighs through his nose.

“Further investigation and interviews with other tribals from the area have confirmed the bird symbols Lucia has painted in various locations do have a tribal connections. They’re only barely a tribe, and have no true lineage.” Vulpes steps around the table, edges closer. “However, they do have some sort of hierarchy, and most of the tribes from their area regard them as some sort of tribe of witches.”

“Superstition.” Caesar snorts.

“These are tribals, however. That superstition has power.” Vulpes taps his finger across the locations marked in red--LUBBOCK, FORT WORTH, DALLAS, SAN ANTONIO, HOUSTON, CORPUS CHRISTI, BROWNVILLE. “If we can reduce them to nothing more than scattered individuals, we can stop any sort of organizing they’ve started.”

“No more than a cohort,” Caesar says. “We need most of our men here to keep control.”

“Of course, Lord Caesar.” Vulpes walks back around the table, bows to Caesar. “I’ll begin preparations.”

***

The sun is sinking toward the horizon when everyone gathers in the dining room. Lucinda and Head Vulture sit next to each other, at the head of the table, near the kitchen doors. Siri sits to Lucinda’s right, and the rest of the women and most of the men are arrayed around the rest of the tables, empty plates in front of themselves, mostly quiet.

“So, how do we move forward?” Head Vulture asks to the room at large.

“I don’t think that's a ‘we’ question, Techie. I think that’s a _her_ question,” Regina replies, and points to Lucinda, who looks up from the table with wide eyes.

“Nah, this is a ‘we’ question,” Head Vulture says. “I’m going with her, so that’s me’n’her, and if we’re getting people out and sending them back there, that’s a _you_ question.”

“You’re _what_ ,” Regina demands. “Techie, you ain’t been able to walk since you got back and you know it, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m gonna find my wife is what I’m doing,” Head Vulture replies, crosses her arms over her chest. “Left a lot of good folks behind, and I owe it to ‘em to get ‘em out. I’m putting my clan back together. That’s what I’m doing.”

“You’re a dumbass who’s gonna get yourself killed,” Regina replies. 

“Might be,” Head Vulture replies, and leans in. “Rather die walking free than of pneumonia though.” Her voice is low, her eyelids lowered, her face soft. “And I’d rather die helping than sitting here with my thumb up my ass.” She raises one eyebrow, sets her elbows on the table and rests her chin in her hands. “Not gonna convince me to stay here, so change your argument.”

“What do you expect us to do about your suicide mission to kill a man who’s declared himself god-emperor?” Swan asks. She’s scooted her chair back, and has her booted feet up on the table and her arms crossed across her chest.

“Take whoever we send back here,” Lucinda says. “Leaving slaves in the towns will just get them killed when the Legion takes a town back, and we can’t arm them well enough to hold off assassins or a centuria or even a goddamn contubernium.” Lucinda pushes the remains of her potatoes around her plate, starts mounding them in the center, doesn’t look up. “We took better-defended towns with fewer agents and with some very basic trickery, if not outright force, but we had the planning and tools, and this would be a slave rebellion. Slaves aren’t going to be fed well enough to fight back, if they can do it in their heads in the first place.” She separates her potatoes out into two even piles on opposite sides. “Evacuation, and then trapping what’s left in town to kill anyone who shows up, to give the weather time to cover the evacuees tracks while Caesar sends a second contubernium to investigate the silence, that’s going to be the best way to do it.” She sets her fork down, finally looks up.

“Well aren’t you the military genius,” Swan snorts. “So you wanna dump a bunch of brainwashed slaves on us, with no guarantee they won’t bring the Legion down on us? If they’re too brainwashed to fight back, they’re too brainwashed to end up here, if you ask me.”

“She raises a good point,” Regina agrees. “If they’re not safe to fight back against the Legion, why are they safe to send here? We need to worry about _our_ safety too. If the Legion moves on us, we’ll be brushed aside. We’re a bunch of old women, we don’t have the martial power, even if everyone was armed, to hold off any number of actual, trained soldiers.”

“They’d have to find us first, and who knows where we are?” Lucinda asks, looks back down at her plate, picks up her fork again and starts flattening the potatoes. “Most of the elders are dead in ditches somewhere, the ones that are left know not to talk, and how many Legion-absorbed tribes know where this place is anyway?” There’s an edge to her voice, but she still doesn’t look up from her plate. “You’re safe here.”

“Unless you send someone to us, and then she runs back to the Legion and tells them where we are.” Swan snorts. “Send them to us when you’re sure they’re safe to be here.”

“They’re slaves, they’re not gonna be able to run anyway, it’s all in their heads. Once they’re out form under the Legion things will get easier. It’s easier to resist when you’re away from them. They’ll be fine.”

“No they won’t, you were away from them for how long? Five years? Didn’t stop you from becoming a Ravenkiller and Shrike, did it?” Swan shoots back. “They’re not our problem until they’re--”

Head Vulture slams her fist on the table, rattling the dishes and cups and silverware, startling everyone.

“ _My brethren all, on you I call,  
Arise and look around you._ ”

She pauses, looks around the table. Everyone is watching her, some with mouths open, some with sour expressions, some with soft bafflement.

“ _How many foes, bound to oppose,  
Who’re waiting to confound you!_ ”

She keeps watching their faces, and recognition starts to dawn.

“ _The people call upon our walls,_  
Shake off your sleep and slumber;  
Arise and pray, we’ll win the day,  
Though we are few in number.”

Head Vulture looks around the table, her hand still curled into a fist, breathing labored.

“You know that one?” she asks. “Or you need me to sing through it all again? You need me to stand up here and tell you to grow a fucking spine?”

Swan still looks sour, though the others around her are watching Head Vulture with newly-open expressions.

“You’ve always been a gloryhound,” Swan snaps. “You’ve always liked the bloody parts of being a Vulture, and we’ve all known for decades that you’re barely better than a Shrike anyway. You just want this chance to hurt people and call it justified.”

“Pardon me for being angry,” Head Vulture replies, voice low and bitter. “Sorry I didn’t walk out of a decade of torture feeling like I oughta just take it easy for the rest of my life.”

“You were like this even before the Legion took you,” Swan says, loud, challenging. “Now you just have an excuse.”

“Every one of my friends is dead or missing,” Head Vulture says, quieter, collapsed in on herself. “My wife has been missing for a decade and a half, I watched my friends get shot because other friends didn’t have the spine to fight back so at least they wouldn’t rot in a ditch.” Her voice rises until she's talking at normal volume. “Every person I have met from the Legion has been brutalized--” she points at Siri, who hunches down in her chair, “--twisted into someone and something unrecognizable--” she points to Lucinda, who doesn’t acknowledge it, “--or beaten until they learned to keep their mouth shut, productivity be damned!” She smacks herself in the chest, voice at a low yell. “There ain’t been a day in the last ten years where I ain’t wanted to roll over and die first thing in the morning because it’s another twenty four hours of pain that ain’t ever gonna go away!” She’s loud, now, yelling. “So pardon me for being pissed and violent and wanting revenge when the worst thing the rest of you lot ever suffered through was the day in and day out boredom of a goddamn tribe that goddamn loved you!” She’s breathing hard again, eyes wide, brows furrowed.

“You think you’re the only one who lost friends?” Swan shouts back, drops her feet back to the floor. “We barely knew what happened to all of you! We had to watch people disappear without a trace for years! Just because you wanna kill people doesn’t mean the rest of us wanna get involved with you and the Shrike!”

“Aren’t you obligated to help people when you see them hurting? Or are you that much of a self-absorbed prick to think you shouldn’t do something to help?”

“ _I’m_ the self- absorbed one! You’re the one who’s going to--”

“Stop!” Siri shouts, “Stop stop stop!” She stands up, chair shrieking across the floor. “Both of you stop!”

Head Vulture, Swan, and the rest of the women turn to look at her. She’s shaking, where she stands, and she looks around at everyone.

“Just stop,” she says, quieter. “Please.”

“Nice job, Vulture, you scared the guest,” Swan spits.

“Swan, leave the room,” Regina interjects before Head Vulture can say anything. “You’re just being antagonistic now. Techie, go outside and take a break, cool off some, we can do a vote without you two since we know where both of you stand.”

“You all know what the right decision is,” Head Vulture says, and stands. “Sorry, Siri,” she adds, nods to Siri, who keeps her lips pressed tight together as she nods back.

Head Vulture leaves first, as fast as she can, turns to go sit outside. Swan waits until the front door slams shut, then leaves herself, turns down the hall to go back into the basement without a word. Regina sighs, and Siri slowly sits down as quietly as she can.

“So, does anyone have any real objections we haven’t covered?” Cardinal asks.

“I got a consideration, not an objection,” Poorwill pipes up. “How do we get refugees back here? Either we tell them where it is, and they can get lost somewhere on the way, or one of us goes with you all and brings them back, _or_ one of you comes back with them and slows you down.”

“There have to be a few of us left in the east-Legion towns.” Lucinda finally looks up from her plate. “Most of ours weren’t killed outright, and if everyone else was killed with similar numbers, there have to be some.”

“And if there aren’t?” Poorwill asks.

“Then we come back with them so they know the way, find one who wants to come with us to help evacuate people, since I guarantee there’s going to be at least one.”

“Then I got no objections.” Poorwill nods. “I vote we take whoever they send.”

“Go check on those two,” Regina sighs. “We’ll vote here.”

“Alright. Be back in a bit.” Poorwill hauls herself up out of her chair, and heads toward the front of the building. 

Poorwill closes the door behind herself, and several people sigh all at once.

“This is an easy vote,” Regina says. “If you’re in favor of taking refugees, raise your hand.”

Lucinda and Siri both raise their hands, as does Regina, along with thirteen other women, and seven men. Regina counts everyone up, and nods.

“All those against taking refugees, raise your hand.”

Five women raise their hands, and four men. 

Regina counts those up, and sits back.

“We’re short five votes, any of you gonna raise your hand?”

There’s no response.

“Alright, well, there’s a clear majority in favor of taking whoever shows up on our doorstep. Good on you all.” Regina smiles as she looks around. “Glad we haven’t lost that at least.” Regina stands up, gathers her dishes. “Poorwill, Ravenshrike, Finch, Maria, you’re on dishes with me tonight.”

The four women gather their own dishes and follow Regina into the kitchen, as one of the men grabs a cart from next to the door, trundles it around to take everyone else’s dishes.

Everyone else around the table disperses, and Siri heads outside, after Head Vulture, passes Poorwill--who tips her a salute--in the hallway.

Head Vulture is standing in the gate, smoking a cigarette. Siri makes sure to make noise as she walks up behind her, leans against the other side of the gate.

“How’d it count out?” Head Vulture asks.

“A solid majority in favor of taking refugees.”

“Thank god.” Head Vulture sighs. She holds her cigarette over toward Siri, who waves it away. “Swan never left, so she knows ‘em better than I do, makes me nervous.” Head Vulture takes her cigarette back. “How’d you vote?”

“To take them. I can’t just leave people behind. I did, but I don’t feel good about it.” Siri shrugs, looks out toward the horizon. “And I can’t pick up a gun and go with you and Lucy, so I’ll do what I can here.” Siri folds her arms across her chest, chews her bottom lip. “Anyone who shows up here is almost certain to be dehydrated, malnourished, probably with worms, untreated injuries, scurvy, most of them will be scared and anxious, it’s going to be an all-tribe ordeal.” She sighs, reaches up to rub at her chin and neck absentmindedly. “Does anyone here have any sort of experience with explosives and the slave collars, or anything like them? It’s unlikely they’ll have collars by the time they get here, but on the off chance that they do, it’s not something I can do.”

“I’ll draw ‘em a diagram,” Head Vulture says. “There’s a firing range nearby. If you get the right wire, you get a forty-count to get as far away as possible from it. You get someone with a good arm and that’s enough to throw it and run in the other direction.” She takes a drag off her cigarette. “The explosives in them aren’t actually that powerful, They’re just focused and in an inconvenient place. Big problem was that there ain’t a way to disarm them all the way, just delay the timer.” Head Vulture sneers, doesn’t look at Siri. “I made a lot of guns and machetes and armor for those bastards, but repacking the collars was the worst job I’ve ever fucking done.”

“We’ve all done things for them we didn’t want to,” Siri agrees.

“You ever kill a man you could have saved?” Head Vulture asks, finally glances over at Siri, eyebrows raised.

“I swore to do no harm,” Siri replies, scowls. “I may have hated them, but I couldn’t betray that. I just couldn’t.”

Head Vulture snorts, smiles.

“You got more principles than I do,” she murmurs, still smiling, but her eyebrows are drawn together. “Hey, you ever treat cazador stings?”

“Only a few times. The most we could do was palliative care, if they hadn’t been--you know.”

“Mmm. You have folks survive it ever?” Head Vulture finally snuffs out the end of her cigarette against the wall, then drops it and scuffs it into the dirt with her boot.

“A few. If you could get water into their mouths, you could get them through the week and a half with only some dehydration and hunger, instead of massive dehydration and starvation.”

“Well, shit.” Head Vulture huffs out an almost-laugh. “Wasn’t sure how long the stings’d last, but I guess that answers my question.”

“Are you planning something?” Siri asks, worried edge to her voice. She turns to study Head Vulture, who stays leaned in the doorway, shoulders loose, arms crosses, bad leg kicked up, grinning.

“Made myself some darts out of what I had around, used a couple escaping. Wasn’t sure how long those guys laid there and screamed until they died.” She rubs the bottom half of her face, still grinning, something hard-edged and gleeful in it. “Figured about three days, if it didn’t wear off before then. Figured it was thirst.”

“In cases where we can’t get them to drink anything, it is,” Siri agrees. “That’s...that’s brutal, and I don’t think I want to hear about it.”

“They’ve hurt me enough I don’t feel bad about letting them suffer first. You heard what I said earlier.”

“I still don't want to hear it,” Siri says, quieter.

“Sorry,” Head Vulture says, only a minimum of real feeling behind it. “Hey, where’s Little Bird?”

“She was on dishes tonight. I thought I’d come out and check on you.”

“Thanks,” Head Vulture replies, automatic. “I’m good out here, though. I’ll come back inside when everyone’s calmed down a bit more.”

“Do you want me to send Lucy out if I see her?”

“If you want.” Head Vulture shrugs. “I might be back inside by the time she finishes dishes.”

“Alright.” Siri nods, then turns and heads back inside without another word.

Head Vulture stays standing in the gateway, still staring out toward the horizon, fingers twitching as she watches the darkness creep higher and higher above the horizon, as the sun sets behind her.


	2. 69t (Minister's Farewell)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter two: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIRLuphqvBM).
> 
> Warning for some minor gore/violence.

Head Vulture’s pack is outfitted with a tool roll, a well-padded glass bottle triple-labeled “VENOM - DO NOT TOUCH;” an extra set of clothes; a wooden box with “BOLTS” crudely carved into its top; a dozen soft cloth sacks of jerky, dried vegetables, dried fruit; and smaller sacks of jalapeños, broc flowers, mint, juniper; all topped off with a neatly-folded thin blanket. She looks between her own pack and Lucinda’s pack, which is similarly filled: a rifle cleaning kit, an extra two gallon jugs of water, five cardboard boxes of .45-70 ammunition, the same assortment of food, a box with a white plus sign painted on it, her blanket folded over the top of it all.

The two remaining gold bars sit on the top of the dresser, still wrapped in rough canvas. Head Vulture had watched Lucinda, silently, but with raised eyebrows, when Lucinda had dug them out and set them aside. Siri had squinted at them for a moment, considered them, and then gone back to her reading.

Head Vulture’s vulture hops around the room, investigating corners, discarded clothing, discarded tools, discarded food scraps. Lucinda’s vulture and her two ravens follow behind the bigger vulture, readily investigating everything she leaves behind.

“So we leave tomorrow?” Head Vulture asks. “Early as we’re both up?”

“Yep,” Lucinda agrees, sits back from her pack. She flips it shut, secures it, and shoves it against the side of the dresser. “I’m ready.”

“What do you have for medical supplies?” Siri asks.

“If we get shot, we’re dead anyway,” Head Vulture says. “The plan is to not get shot.”

“I’ve got some bandages and some healing powder. A few stimpaks. some Med-X. I’ve got anything that'll be useful to us, don’t worry.”

“I’m a doctor, it’s my job to make sure you both stay as healthy as possible.”

“If we get shot, ain’t nothing any of that is gonna do for us.” Head Vulture shrugs, closes her own pack, sets it aside. 

“Stimpaks help,” Lucinda replies. “Got shot at by some raiders around New Vegas a few times, stimpaks will stop the bleeding at least. Gets you to a real doctor who can take the bullet out and stitch you up.”

“Unless a doctor magically materializes out of cactus and yucca and dirt, what doctor is that gonna be?” Head Vulture asks. 

“I know some doctoring,” Lucinda replies, puts her fists on her hips, straightens her back, tries to give Head Vulture a _look_. The memory flashes through Siri’s mind--Lucinda sitting at the counter, hands shaking, something deep and empty and terrified in the way she held herself, feeding her bird, not looking at anyone, stammering out _I could have done anything_ , the brief, violent, satisfying thought she had felt rip through her own mind, the thought of taking Caesar’s brain and crushing it in her hands, tearing it apart as he died in front of her, even though the guard would have dragged her away, crucified her, thrown her to the dogs, killed her as an example. It would have been a brief moment of world-changing power.

It _was_ a moment of world-changing power, and it’s taken this long to reverse it.

“You know enough doctoring to make shit better instead of just not deadly?” Head Vulture asks. She stands, picks up her pack. “‘Cause that’s what we need.”

“Well, I can try,” Lucinda replies, drops her shoulders, relaxes.

“I think that’s about as good as we’re gonna get.” Head Vulture snorts, whistles short and loud, and her vulture wobbles after her as she heads out into the hall without another word.

Lucinda kicks at the things left on the floor with one sock foot, doesn’t look at Siri.

“The gold bars are yours, if you want them. I don’t need them anymore.”

“I’m not sure I need them either,” Siri murmurs. She closes her book, sets it aside, studies the bottom of the top bunk.

“You can always just shove them in a drawer somewhere. I’ve found some real treasures by poking around in places I shouldn't.” Lucinda pauses a moment, then laughs. “Hey, if you dig around enough, maybe you’ll find more gold bars somewhere, there’s enough drawers and empty rooms here.” 

“I’ll see what I can find. I’m going to look around some of the lower rooms tomorrow to pick out a workspace, since I’m going to need it when you start sending people back.”

Lucinda swings her feet up onto the bed, curls up on her side, hands in front of her chest. 

“I’m glad you get your own workspace,” she says, quiet. “You deserve it.”

“The medical supplies might be a struggle, especially if there’s a significant influx of people who need treatment.” Siri sighs, taps her fingers against her stomach. “Tools, not as much, since we can make so with what there is around, but medicine might be a struggle.”

“I’ll see what I can get the other refugees to carry back.” Lucinda shifts. 

“Painkillers are going to be the important thing, I think--palliative care is going to be the main concern. I can put a leg in traction, but the trip will…” She trails off, screw her face up. “The trip will select for certain people who can make the trip.”

“Yeah, it will,” Lucinda agrees, quietly. She looks to Siri, studies her face, trying to tell if she said the right thing.

“Long-keeping food, clean water, painkillers, and antibiotics are going to be the major things we need. There should be materials to make hydra, if I can get someone to hunt night stalkers and radscorpions for me.” Siri suddenly rolls over, off the bed, and goes to dig through the top drawer of the dresser, where her pack has already started to migrate. She finds a pad of paper and a stubby pencil, and scribbles something down. Lucinda watches her, doesn't move. “Xander and broc can be grown nearby, if they aren’t already. That will give me the ingredients for poultices and bitter drink too, if I need those. If I can get the components for hydra, that means I can make regular antidote too.” Siri continues writing, halfway down her page. “Are there cazadores in the area?”

“I think Head Vulture hunted most of them down,” Lucinda says, still doesn’t move. “There might be a few.”

“So I can brew that antivenom too,” Siri murmurs, ad writes something else on her paper. “They might have some of these things in storage? The xander and broc especially. I’ll see what the others can help me find tomorrow.” Siri sits back down on the bed, sets the pencil and pad of paper down next to herself. “Do you know what sort of trading relationships they have with other tribes in the area, and far away?”

“I was about to turn thirteen the last time I was here, Siri. They weren’t expecting me to actually know shit for another five or six years.” Lucinda raises one eyebrow, but she’s fighting down a smile at the same time.

“Well, sure, but you must remember _something_ ,” Siri sighs. 

“Most tribes north of us thought we were witches and tolerated us that far, and most of them south of us thought we were weird and that the tribe was always teetering on the brink of disaster because we didn’t produce our own daughters and wouldn’t usually recruit sons.” Lucinda shrugs, closes her eyes. “We could get stuff from most of them, but they weren’t always happy about giving stuff over. The ones who thought we were witches tended to just give us stuff, especially if someone witch-looking asked for it. One of the old folks. Sometimes me and Fledgling would go and be cute to get them to give just us stuff.” Lucinda laughs a little, and Siri smiles. “But I don’t know who they traded with for what.”

“Alright,” Siri murmurs. “Who here would know that?”

“Regina, maybe. Swan. Really anyone who lives here normally. Maybe some of the men, I dunno.” Lucinda shrugs again, opens her eyes. “Probably not Poorwill though.”

Siri grabs her pad of paper again and flips it over, starts a new list.

“Alright,” she murmurs, chews on her bottom lip for a moment before tapping her pencil against it, then digging her teeth into that. “I’ll ask around.”

“There’s probably someone who does most of the bookkeeping for that kind of stuff. One of the songbirds.”

“Mmm,” Siri agrees, and finally lays back down. “Any of the pre-war stuff would be good, too.”

“I’ll see what I can get brought back,” Lucinda murmurs. Siri nods, stares silently at the bottom of the top bunk, and Lucinda closes her eyes, drifts off to sleep without another word.

***

The farewell party is small--Siri, Poorwill, Regina, and Swan. A couple of the men look over once in awhile, but they're not paying much attention. Lucinda has her gun over her shoulder, one raven circling above her, the other sitting on her other shoulder. Her vulture sits in its sling, silent, not moving much. She holds the songbook in one hand, fingers tracing absentminded patterns on its cover. Head Vulture has a crossbow on a strap over her shoulder, her own vulture circling high above.

“We’ll be back when Caesar’s dead,” Head Vulture says, leans on her cane, flexes her arms. 

“Lanius too,” Lucinda says, quiet. She stares back at the building, chews on her bottom lip, her eyebrows drawn down. “There’ll be no one left to take over, when we’re done.”

“Good,” Siri says. “Take a picture for me if you can.” She gives Lucinda half a smile, and Lucinda half-smiles back.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Lucinda agrees.

After a moment of hesitation, Siri steps forward, reaches for Lucinda, and Lucinda reaches back, sends her raven up in a clatter of wings and indignant squawking, and she and Siri hug. They hold each other, tight, and while the others cast glances at them, none says anything. When they pull away, Lucinda hands Siri the songbook.

“Sixty-nine, on the top half of the page.” She pulls away, and Siri opens the book, flips through pages until she finds the page.

“Alright,” Siri murmurs, presses her finger against the water-wrinkled page.

Head Vulture turns sharply, takes three steps toward the gate, breathes deep. 

“ _Dear friends, farewell! I do you tell,_  
 _Since you and I must part--_ ”

She pauses just a moment, and Lucinda turns and follows her, joins Head Vulture’s deep, booming voice with her own careful, wavery singing.

“ _I go away, and here you stay,_  
 _But still we’re joined at heart._ ”

The two of them walk toward the gate, still singing. The farewell party stands, waiting, backs straight, shoulders squared, as Lucinda and Head Vulture reach the gate.

“ _Your love to me has been most free,_  
 _Your conversation sweet;_  
 _How can I bear to journey where_  
 _With you I cannot meet?_ ”

Lucinda and Head Vulture step through the gate. They start the same verse over, and this time, Regina, Swan, and Poorwill sing too. Siri adds her voice, and the six of them sing until Head Vulture and Lucinda’s voices disappear into the noise of crumbling masonry, chirping birds, and the wind through the skeletons of buildings.

“Then that’s that,” Regina says. “Now we wait.”

“How long until you think they'll bring the first folks back?” Poorwill asks.

“Two months,” Regina says. “Techie said they’d head to Amarillo, break everyone there out first. That’s about a month to walk there, and then they’ll take about a month to get back, unless they push more than they should, or unless they’re all a lot more decrepit than we’re expecting.”

“That’s certainly possible,” Siri says. “Slaves are not...particularly known for their robust physical health.” She closes the hymnbook, looks down at the dirt. “Subpar diet, physical abuse, the uncertainty of the final destination, I wouldn't be surprised if it took even longer.”

“Just have to keep the doors open a little longer, then,” Swan says.

“Gives me a little more time to prepare too.” Siri looks up, out, back toward the gate. “Regina, who does accounting and supplies here? I have a list of things I need, if I’m going to have any sort of medical resources.”

“Our resident Seagull will now exactly where what you want is, or where she can get it. Come on, I’ll introduce you.” Regina waves Siri along, and they retreat into the building. Swan stays standing outside, an arm’s length from Poorwill, who says nothing.

“You still know how to shoot a gun?” Swan asks.

“Sure do,” Poorwill agrees. “You?”

“Yep.” Swan leans back on one leg, crosses her arms. “Think we oughta be ready for bad shit to come our way.”

“Yeah,” Poorwill agrees, and the two of them stand in silence for a minute longer watching the gate, until Poorwill turns to go back inside. Swan heads over toward the garden, picks up a hoe on the way over, and takes her place next to one of the men.

***

Amelia--the Seagull Regina had talked about, she had insisted Siri call her by name--had led Siri down the dark, wide staircase, down three flights of stairs, until they came out on a landing with a door that led to a long hall. There are a dozen rooms on each side of the hall, most of the doors propped open. There’s the sound of ventilation from most of them, and as they walk past, a few are bedrooms--the one closest to the stairs has TECH VULTURE - I CALL DIBS written on the door in what looks like permanent marker--but most are stacked with crates, barrels, ammo boxes, and lumpy canvas sacks.

“Alright, you wanted, what was it, xander, broc, nightstalker blood, radscorpion venom, cazador venom, cave fungus, and any sort of fresh vegetable and shelf-stable meat we’ve got, right?”

“And any sort of chems, Med-X, hydra, rubbing alcohol, anything I can turn into medicine. Plaster for casts, bandages, or cloth I can turn into bandages, thread, needles, any sort of medical supplies at all.”

“Alright, well.” Amelia flips through her clipboard. She slow to a stop, and Siri stops next to her. “Most of our food is going to be in those five rooms.” She points at the five rooms next to Head Vulture’s room, stretching down the hall away from them. “There’s enough there that we could eat it for four months and be fine, and we have time to supplement that with fresh stuff. Most of our medical supplies will be, hmmm.” She trails off again, looks down her list. “In this last room on the left. Let’s go take a look.” She trots off down the hall, Siri trailing behind. She opens the door, steps inside, and Siri follows her in, looks around the room.

There are crates stacked to the ceiling all along the back wall, and shelves line the side walls, and make a maze through the middle of the room, most of them stacked with wooden milkcrates full of labelled glass bottles. The whole right wall has frayed cardboard boxes marked with a variety of pre-war names--some with labels like ALLERGY, SLEEP, PAIN RELIEF, DISINFECTANT, but most covered in inexplicable brand names and bright, eye-catching but unexplanatory packaging. Along the wall the door is in, there are three shelves, one full of only clear alcohol in bottles. Another has repurposed crates--originally marked SUNSET SARSPARILLA--that have been relabeled with SCRAP METAL, SYRINGES, SCALPELS, KNIFE?, FORCEPS, and other medical equipment.

Siri stares at the sheer amount of material in front of her.

“I can go get the whole inventory for you, if you wanna go over it,” Amelia offers, and then a moment later presses the clipboard into Siri’s hands. “Here, look over the overview, get an idea of what all we’ve got, and I’ll see if I can track down the whole list of how much of it we’ve got. Or we can go find you a workspace.”

“I think--I think there will be enough here, even without seeing a full inventory,” Siri says, voice strangled as she tries to keep the glut of materials from overwhelming her. “I’d like to find a workspace.”

“Alright,” Amelia agrees, with a smile. “What d’you want in a workspace? How big? You wanna sleep in the same space? What do you want?”

“Are there any restrictions?” Siri asks. She closes her eyes, holds the clipboard out to Amelia, who takes it. “I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

“You tell me what you want, and I’ll see what we’ve got,” Amelia replies, grinning. “We got a lot of space, and a lot of places we don’t use.”

“Something the size of the dining room,” Siri says. “Or a little bigger.”

“We got a pre-war gymnasium?” Amelia offers.

“I think that’s a little too much space, but thank you. Something with a bedroom for me nearby, but not connected, necessarily.”

“Alright, we can do that,” Amelia agrees, starts flipping through the pages on her clipboard. “Got about half a dozen rooms that fit that.”

“And I’d like natural light, if we can get it. And on the main floor, so people don’t have to be carried down steps, if they’re very hurt or very sick. That way the food and everything is on the same floor.”

“Then we got one room for you, and a few you can look at if it’s not the one you want. May I show you to your new workspace, Ms. Siri?” Amelia makes a flourishing bow, and Siri grins, feels her heart leap in her chest.

“Please,” Siri agrees. “I’ll need furniture for it, too. A few carts, some dividers, at least a half dozen beds, if not a couple more than that. Some cabinets to keep things in.”

“We can get all of that moved in once you're sure it’s where you wanna set up. Now, follow me upstairs, let's go check out your new workspace.”

Siri follows Amelia up to the first floor again, and they approach the front door, but they turn right, down a hall Siri hadn’t looked at much when she had entered before. They pass three doors before Amelia stops, opens one.

“What about this one?” Amelia asks, steps aside to let Siri in.

The room is open, devoid of furniture. There are a few dead flies in the corners, like no one spends any regular time in it, and the floor is dusty, but the linoleum tiles are unstained, and mostly uncracked. The room is longer than it is wide, and the far wall is covered in windows, with a few on the back wall. 

“This is beautiful,” Siri says, soft. “This is perfect.” She freezes, and feel her heart in her throat again, can feel tears welling up. She wills them down, swallows hard, tries to focus on concrete details--the off-white of the tiles, flecked through with brown and gray, the faded, pastel yellow of the walls, which corners seem to have the most flies and will need the most sweeping.

“The closest bedroom is just next door, back down the hall. It’s small, but you’d be the only one in it. It has a bed, dresser, a light, a cabinet probably. If you want a bigger room we can always put you downstairs with the rest of us.”

“I’d like to see it before I decide,” Siri says, and she can hear her own voice waver. “This is where I’ll set up the clinic, though.”

“Sure!” Amelia grins big, marks it down on her map in big, looping print letters. “I know everyone feels better having a real doctor around again. The last time we had one was decades ago. Got a little too chemmed up one night and, uh, met an inglorious end by choking on her own vomit.”

“That’s not something you’ll have to worry about,” Siri replies. 

“Thanks, I’m glad to hear it.” Amelia sounds relieved. “Now, the bedroom is right over here…” She brushes past Siri, who’s still staring at the room--her room, her clinic, a real space for her to work in, something that belongs to her and her alone, a place where she can set up equipment permanently--and back out into the hall, then turns immediately to her left, opens another door. The room it reveals is small, windowless, but she flicks a switch and a bright light comes on above. There’s a bed against the wall, a small cabinet with a lamp next to it, a dresser next to a set of shelves on the back wall. There’s a blue-dyed rag rug on the floor.

Siri stands behind Amelia, studies the room.

“It certainly seems like a nice room,” she says. She steps past Amelia, stands next to the bed and stretches her arms out. Her fingertips don’t touch the walls, and she lets her hands fall to her sides. “I’ll sleep here.”

“We have bigger rooms, if you want to look at them?” Amelia offers. 

“I liek this one, and it’s close to the clinic. I don’t have to carry my things down a flight or two of stairs, either.” Siri sits on the mattress, which settles under her weight with a small creak. “This is fine.”

“You can ask for things to be better than ‘fine,’ if you want,” Amelia says, soft. “I’m glad you’re easy to please, but you can have opinions.”

“I like this room,” Siri replies. She curls her fingers into the mattress. 

“Alright,” Amelia agrees. “I’ll put you down here. You change your mind, you come find me, and we’ll move you wherever you wanna go.”

 

“I will, thank you.”

“You have a list of what equipment and furniture you want moved up here?” Amelia stands poised with her pencil and her clipboard.

“Not yet, I’ll get it to you at dinner.” Siri runs her hand over the mattress. It feels about the same as the one in the guest room. “Do you have any sort of bedsheets?” she asks.

“Sure do. I’ll get some to you right away. You take your time moving in, getting your list made, all that. I’ll see if I can get you a broom and a mop too. Maybe some volunteers to helps you clean that room out tonight and tomorrow.

“Thank you,” Siri murmurs. “I can handle the rest of this.”

“Sure thing, I’ll go get you some sheets.” Amelia turns and trots back down the hallway. Siri stays sitting on he bed until she hears the downstairs door creak open, then clatter shut, then she gets up and heads down the hall too, toward the guest room.

It’s easy to put all her things--even her new clothes--back into her pack. Amelia goes by while she’s repacking, sheets wadded up in her arms, then goes by, arms empty, a minute later. Siri folds her blanket up, carries that herself, and heads to her new, permanent bedroom.

The mattress has sheets on it, both a fitted sheet and a flat sheet. both of them have little cartoon rocketships on them, blasting off, surrounded by scattered stars and a planets with rings. She tosses her blanket on the bed, drops her pack next to it, and begins unpacking.

Her textbook goes onto the shelf, and the hymnbook after it. She tosses all her clothes into the top two drawers of the dresser, leaves her canteen on top of it. Her bag of instruments she sets on the top shelf. Her pack gets shoved into a corner between the wall and the shelf.  
She shakes out her blanket and tosses it over the bed, square it out, tucks it in under the mattress so it’s neat and clean.

The room still looks empty, like she doesn’t have enough things to fill it, and she doesn’t. It still feels impersonal, barely-hers, like it’s something on loan and not hers to keep.

That’s when Amelia comes back with a broom, a mop, and an empty bucket.

“I got you stuff to clean,” she says, hefts the implements a little. 

“Thank you,” Siri murmurs. “I’m all unpacked, I’ll get to work over there.” She reaches for the broom, and Amelia hands it over.

“That really all you’ve got with you?” Amelia asks.

“I didn’t have a lot of room for sentimental items.” Siri shrugs. “I might take a few of the smaller things Lucy left, but neither of us had much.” She ducks her head, steps past Amelia and into the clinic room. She puts her broom to the floor and starts sweeping.

“I'll talk to the other ladies about getting you some knicknacks to fill out that shelf. Some welcoming gifts. What bird are you again?”

“I’ve been told both Vulture and Raven,” Siri says. There are a lot more flies than she expected, but they sweep up easy, at least. She already has a nice pile of them. 

“Ooh, then we should have some nice gifts for you. I think I saw Maria embroidering a nice vulture design on a wall hanging last week, I'll see if I can get her to gift it to you.”

“That’s really not necessary.” Siri laughs a little, nervous. 

“Sure it is,” Amelia replies. “Gotta make sure you know you’re welcome.”

“I--I already feel welcome, thank you. I don’t need any gifts, I’m sure I’ll manage to fill my shelves fine on my own, thank you.”

“Alright,” Amelia agrees, cautious. “You change your mind, just come find me.”

“I will,” Siri agrees, fighting down another nervous laugh. “If you would leave the mop there, I can handle this, I think.”

“Sure,” Amelia agrees, and puts the mop and bucket against the wall, just inside the door. “I’ll be downstairs.”

“Thank you,” Siri says again, no feeling behind it but the mountain nervous tension.

Amelia leaves, and Siri closes the door once she’s far enough down the hall, sets to work sweeping.

***

Swan had joined her, without a word, with a four buckets of water, a chunk of soft soap, and a bucket of sand, and set to work scrubbing the floor without saying a word. When Siri finishes her sweeping, she stands aside, works out a list of furniture, tools, and supplies she wants in the room, watches Swan scrub the floor with sand, then mop it back up.

They head to dinner together, still quiet. Amelia takes the list, goes down it quickly, nods. 

“We can start moving things up tomorrow morning. You take it easy tonight, since I know you were cleaning all day.”

“Thank you,” Siri says, automatic. She shovels more mashed potatoes into her mouth to avoid having to say anything else.

After dinner, she goes back to the clinic-to-be, alone, and paces around it, measures things in steps. There's a door at either end of the room, facing the hallway, and inside the one closest, she decides on a waiting area--a few chairs against the wall, a table in front of them, maybe a few books or magazines to leave there, a radio if she can scrounge one up. The middle of the room will be an actual examining area, or surgery area, the area where things happen. Some sort of table in the middle for someone to sit on, cupboards along the back wall to hold things, a countertop to set things on. The far corner, ringed by windows, can be where the beds go--four along the long back wall, two on the shorter wall.

It’ll all start to really come together tomorrow.

She turns to go back to her tiny bedroom, and is startled by Cardinal, standing in the doorway, holding a cathedral radio.

“We can get a few long-distance AM channels,” Cardinal says. “You might be able to hear something from New Mexico or Arizona. There’s about four, sometimes five FM channels, too, though most of them are in Spanish. Techie gave me the radio to replace my broken one while she was fixing it, but she never asked for this one back. It’s yours now.” 

“Thank you, but I don't need any sort of gifts.” Siri folds her arms across her chest, holds herself. She doesn't look at Cardinal. “You really don’t need to.”

“It’ll help fill the silence,” Cardinal says, soft. Siri shakes her head, still doesn't look at Cardinal. “It might not have gotten to you when Ravenshrike went off to re-earn her name, but it’ll get you soon enough.” Siri shakes her head again, looks up at Cardinal, but is cut off before she can say anything. “You don't have to use it, just take it. I won’t ask you about it or anything.”

“I--I really don’t need it, thank you, I--”

“Please. Just take the radio, Siri.” Cardinal looks desperate, pleading. “I’ve never met a single woman who didn't come here, sleep alone for the first time in her life, and not end up scared of how quiet it gets here. It might not get you right away, but it will. Just keep the radio, and if you don’t want it in two weeks I’ll take it back. Please.” Cardinal holds out the radio, and Siri unwinds her arms, takes it. It sticks in her throat, though, and it’s hard to keep further protests silent. She holds it loosely, not close, not like she cherishes it. Cardinal nods. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” she says, and leaves without another word.

Siri stays standing in the empty room, radio in her hands, eyes closed and head tipped back as she tried to fight down some mounting emotion that’s threatening to come screaming out of her throat.

She carries the radio back to her room, puts it on top of the dresser next to her canteen. It’s got a switch marked ON/OFF, a clear glass frequency display, and a pair of nicely-engraved knobs, one with FREQUENCY carved neatly under it, the other with VOLUME beneath it. The whole wooden casing is carved, too, in pretty floral scrolling. The mesh covering the speakers is a tarnished yellow-brass that matches the knob and screws.

It’s a pretty radio, if she’s going to be honest with herself. Pretty, and it hisses with soft static when she flips the on switch. She hesitates a moment, turns and closes her bedroom door before she begins adjusting the FREQUENCY knob until she hears the soft sound of a guitar--not the jazzy, bouncing guitar music some of the legionaries liked to listen to on Radio New Vegas, or the same upbeat, poppy stuff Lucinda would turn on on her radio, just loud enough to be heard, on some of those nights in the Fort, but something soft, and reassuring. Something like a lullaby.

She leaves the radio on, sits on her bed, stares at the wall until the song comes to an end. Someone laughs softly, and there’s the sound of wood on fabric, a tiny musical clunk from the guitar.

“That was Manuel Flores Ortiz, with a song he wrote himself. Thank you for coming to perform tonight, Manuel. We have a lot of people send in letters saying how much they love your playing.”

“Thank you,” Manuel says, laughs a little into the microphone. He sounds nervous. He sounds young--maybe fourteen, fifteen. Barely more than a child. “Abuela always tells me she loves to listen for me on the radio, so I like to come play just for her.”

The two of them continue to talk back and forth, and Siri tunes them out except for the gentle rise and falls of their voices, the soft laughter, the boy’s nerves slowly dissipating into not-quite-confidence. He plays a few more songs, and she recognizes one of the tunes from her childhood, catches herself singing along.

She shakes herself out of it, finally stands. She leaves the radio on, doesn't do more than open the door, check how dark it is outside and in the hall, and then close the door, strip to her underwear, and climb under her blanket and sheet when it proves to be comfortably after dark, even though it had still been only late evening when Cardinal had given her the radio. 

She turns the lights off from her place under the covers, tugs them up from under the mattress to bunch them up around her face, breathe in the clean soap and sunshine smell in her dark room, filled with the soft sounds of a boy on a guitar.

It hits all at once, the clinic, the room that’s _hers_ , the boy with the guitar and the friendly man on the radio, Amelia and Swan and Cardinal all trying to help, Lucinda out in the wasteland somewhere, furious and ready to kill for her, not for the first time. She opens her eyes, and through the crack under the door, just enough moonlight filters from the hallway windows to illuminate a single, perfect cartoon rocketship on her sheets.

The absurdity of it--that this stupid, tiny, childish rocketship would survive the _apocalypse_ when so much was lost, that here she is, a refugee slave, scared and alone, cut off from everyone she knows or knew, with all the supplies and space and _stuff_ she might ever need--all of it hits her, all at once, like the hungry dog at her throat, like the charging bull, like the legionary with his arm raised, and she lets out one ragged sob, shoves her blanketed fist into her mouth to mute the rest that come after, and she sobs into her blanket, full of relief and fear and anxiety and hope, all of them at once, some constricting her lungs, some making her stomach leap, others still catching in her throat.

She sobs until she can’t anymore, and when she finally manages to pull herself back together, Manuel and the host are both gone from the radio, and it’s playing something soft and brassy, with a faint clatter of keys and wheeze of air, a tune she doesn’t know.

She crawls out of bed, scrubs at her face, picks up her shirt to wipe off her cheeks and chin and her eyes, pulls it on after, decides against pants based on the hour. She does grab her blanket, though, wraps it across her shoulders, and she takes her canteen.

The hall is empty, as is the kitchen, and she refills her canteen from the water butt in the corner, take a long drink, and refills it again.

No one joins her in the kitchen, and she goes back to her room, canteen in hand, blanket over her shoulders.

She sets her canteen on the bedside table, climbs into her bed again.

This time she falls asleep quickly, easily, the sound of what might be an out-of-tune accordion filling the room.


	3. 35 (Saints Bound For Heaven)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning for some mentions of death, violence, and gore.
> 
> A song for chapter three: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AQ2hXXSKRA).

Head Vulture’s cane hits bone, and she stops, looks at the smooth round thing half-buried in the dirt. Lucinda stops next to her, takes the chance to drink from her canteen.

Head Vulture digs the skull out with the end of her cane, until its empty eye sockets and missing teeth grin up at her. There’s a gunshot exit wound in the front of it, through the nose and left eye socket.

“And who’s this,” Head Vulture murmurs, squats with some difficulty.

“Take your pick,” Lucinda says. “Could be any of the first four.”

“First four--” Head Vulture starts to ask, then stops. “Shit. Really? Already?”

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees. She scuffs her feet in the dirt, looks out to the horizon. “We were only about a week out, remember.”

“Well, shit.” Head Vulture grunts as she straightens up. “When we come back, we should pick ‘em up, take ‘em home for good.”

“Hey, you take a rest, I want to find something,” Lucinda says. She closes her eyes, furrows her brow, walks to the north end of the pile of bones. She opens them again, scowls. Head Vulture watches her, one eyebrow raised.

“Whatcha lookin’ for, Little Bird?” she asks.

“Old Raven’s coat. Her switchblade.”

“That thing’ll be all rust by now. The hell are you gonna do with that?”

“I’m going to cut out Caesar’s heart.” Lucinda walks, slowly, into the bones, scuffs her foot across the dirt until she catches the edge of something flat and stiff. She squats and gets her fingers under the edge, pulls it up.

“You’re gonna cut out his heart with a rusty switchblade. Sounds like an overdramatic threat.”

“I want him to suffer,” Lucinda says, matter of fact.

Head Vulture snorts and laughs.

Lucinda peels the rest of the flat thing out of the dirt, flips it over. The underside is similarly coated in dirt, and she pushes it aside, starts brushing away the dirt underneath it until she finds the switchblade.

It’s rusted, like Head Vulture had expected, but the mechanism still works, and Lucinda slips it into a pocket on her coat.

“It’ll need sharpened,” Head Vulture says. 

“We’ve got time,” Lucinda replies.

“We hit Amarillo in two weeks.”

“I’m saving it for Caesar. I don’t need it until we’re standing at the Lucky 38 doors.”

“That in Vegas?” Head Vulture asks.

“Big tower, where some pre-war piece of shit made an empire. I killed him. Caesar moved into it, last I heard. Something big and bright. Impossible to miss. You can see it a hundred miles off.”

“Bet it’d make a nice boom when it it the ground. Gimme a few pounds of C4 and a detonator and some time and I bet I could bring that beauty crashing down around his ears.” Head Vulture grins.

“I don’t want him buried under three tons of rubble,” Lucinda replies. “I’m going to cut his heart out while his praetorian guard watches.”

“That'll be a helluva show.” Head Vulture laughs. “Better than any burlesque _I’ve_ ever seen.”

Lucinda laughs too, and the two of them turn toward the north, continue their walk.

***

“Lord Caesar, in our searches for who else belongs to the same tribe as Lucia, we’ve discovered a successful escape attempt by one of them.” Vulpes holds out a folder of paper. “A skilled slave, involved in weapons manufacture. Our reports suggest the slave created a weapon with scraps and used it to escape. All other slaves, aside from she and Lucia, seem to have died in escape attempts, in our possession, or because of their own weaknesses. There are several dozen of the tribe still in our possession.”

“Interview them first. If they don’t have anything valuable, interview the other weapons manufacturers in…” Caesar trails off.

“Red Springs,” Vulpes supplies. “As far as we can tell, none of those slaves were involved in the tribal’s escape. None of them had anything worth telling us.”

“Interview them again, see if you can get any information about the tribe’s origins and relationships. See if you can find a likely origin point.”

“Of course, Lord Caesar,” Vulpes agrees, bows. “I’ve also gathered most of the slaves associated with those chosen to go with Lucia. I suggest some action against them to penalize Lucia’s contubernium for their insubordination.”

“Save any slaves with practical value. Any without skills, do what you will.”

“Of course, Lord Caesar.” Vulpes bows, and takes his leave.

***

“You say you recognize the symbol, but have no idea where it came from?” the frumentarius asks.

“They came from south of us, that’s all I know. Heard one of ‘em say once she was from Mexico, but they had folks from up north of us too. I dunno where they came from. I dunno if they came from anywhere in particular.” The slave shrugs. “They were witches though. I figure they musta just been made up out of dirt, y’know? Like someone real talented just made ‘em up out of mud and made ‘em walk around with magic.”

“Thank you, that’s all.”

***

“You know this symbol?”

“Yeah, that’s a vulture, right? One of those really big ones. I dunno, besides that.”

“It was used as an identifying tattoo for an escaped slave. Do you know the meaning of it?”

“Oh, shit, that’s the one lady. The one who did all the singing, I think, right?”

“Did this slave make a successful escape attempt?”

“Yeah, I think she did. I mean, that’s been four years ago now, I didn’t know if she’d just gotten moved somewhere else or if she’d really gotten out--I mean, ran off.”

“Do you recognize this symbol?” The frumentarius slides a different picture across the table--this one a photograph of a slave’s shoulder, a bird silhouette tattooed on.

“That’s, uh, that’s a raven, right? That looks like a raven.”

“Do you have any knowledge of what either mark represents?”

“I don’t, sorry. The raven one wasn’t real talkative about her tribe, or anything much, but the vulture one, she sang us a nice song sometimes. Got stuck in your head.”

‘Can you remember any of the song?”

“Yeah, sure, course I can. Was really easy to remember. It goes, uh, wait. I won’t get in trouble, right? It’s a song about escaping but I know my place and I ain’t planning on running. I know where I’m supposed to be.”

“No, you won’t get in trouble.”

“Well, alright. It starts out like ‘Our bondage it shall end, by and by, by and by,’ and it does that again, and then it goes ‘From Legion’s yoke set free, hail the glorious jubilee, and back to our tribes return, by and by, by and by,’ and then you sing that last bit over again. At least, best as I remember it.”

“Well, that’s all we need you for.” The frumentarius stands, goes to write notes on a clipboard across the room.

***

“You say you know how the slave got the materials to create a weapon, and how the slave _made_ the weapon?”

“Yes sir.” The slave goes silent, waits.

“And how did the slave get the materials?”

“Shoved ‘em down her shirt. Didn't take anything anyone would miss. Little bits of scrap metal and scraps of firewood. Some ashes if she needed to draw something on the wood. Think she made the bowstring out of her own hair and some animal tendons she dug out of the offal pile.” the slave goes silent again.

“And why did no one report her?”

“Didn’t wanna get hauled in as accessories. Didn’t think she'd manage to make anything out of raw tendons, hair, firewood, and some sort of pre-war strip of metal. Really didn’t expect her to get out.” The slave shrugs, runs her fingers across the grain of the table. “If some suicidal idiot wants to kill her way out of slavery, I say let her.”

The frumentarius grunts.

“Do you know where the slave planned to escape to?”

“Southeast, somewhere. Dunno where. Didn’t ask.”

“Another slave we interviewed mentioned a song. Do you know the song?”

“I remember the last verse, that’s for sure.” She leans forward, looks the frumentarius in the eye. “And it goes like this--

“ _Though the Legion it is strong,_  
 _We’ll go on, we’ll go on_  
 _Though the Legion it is strong,_  
 _We’ll go on._  
 _Though our hearts dissolve with fear,_  
 _our savior she is near,_  
 _While our feet they still can move,_  
 _We’ll go on, we’ll go on,_  
While our feet they still can move,  
 _We’ll go on._ ”

The slave falls silent, continues stares the frumentarius in the eye. She gives him one slow blink.

He looks away first, clears his throat, makes a show of inspecting his sheet of questions.

“Do you know the origin of the song?”

“Nope. Didn’t ask, don’t care.”

“That’s all we needed. Get back to work.” The frumentarius stands, takes his leave without another word.

***

“Do you have any information about where the slave came from?”

“Texas, I think.” The slave wrings her hands, looks around the tent. “At least, southeast, and I think I heard some people saying that’s where they came from. Before we joined the Legion.”

“Do you know where in Texas?”

“Pretty much everyone said they were south of them, so...I don’t know past that. We weren’t in Texas, though, so south of us could mean anywhere.”

“The slave that escaped, what do you know about her?”

“Oh! She was born in Kansas, I know that much. She said she was a Reaver, but she left them. I don’t think she ever told me the name of her new tribe. The bird tribe? I’m not sure they even had a name.”

“That’s been the general report.” The frumentarius sighs, looks at his notes. “Other slaves we’ve talked to have mentioned a song about escaping. Do you know it?”

“I--yeah. She’d sing it all the time. Quieted down a lot of babies with it.”

“What do you remember of it?”

“It was three verses long, I think. I--I won’t get in trouble for telling you what I remember, right? I know my place.”

“You won’t. What do you know?”

“I remember the middle verse of it best. I guess if I sung it I might remember the rest. it went like, uh--

“ _Our deliverer she shall come_  
 _By and by, by and by,_  
 _Our deliverer she shall come_  
 _By and by,_  
 _And our sorrows have an end,_  
 _With our three score years and ten,_  
 _And vast glory crown the day_  
 _By and by, by and by,_  
 _And vast glory crown the day_  
 _By and by._ ”

She pauses, looks at the frumentarius.

“I’m sorry that’s not more helpful.”

“Thank you.” The frumentarius stands, takes his clipboard, and leaves the tent.

***

A bullet digs into the ground fifteen feet to Lucinda’s left, and she stops, throws her arm out to stop Head Vulture.

“You think that was a warning or someone with shit aim?” Head Vulture asks. She leans on her cane. 

“I’m hoping it was a warning shot, because if it was shit aim we’re about to get nailed.”

“An inglorious end,” Head Vulture says. They both fall silent, scan the horizon for the telltale movement of the sniper. After a moment, Head Vulture catches them, moving across the ridge, a half mile away, coat obscuring their shape, long sun-bleached-blonde hair lifting in the breeze.

“Not Legion,” Head Vulture says, tracks the sniper as they move. “Can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman. Long hair. Bandana. Goggles. There, on the hill straight in front of you.”

“I see them,” Lucinda agrees. “Should we stand here and wait?”

“I’d say so. Be ready to knife them if they get close. Not sure I can load and fire in time if they’re in talking range.”

“Got it.” Lucinda tracks the figure too, as it comes closer--down the hill, behind the closer rise, and when she’s sure they're out of eyeshot, she reaches back to check her gun is loaded. She cycles the action once, makes sure there’s a bullet chambered, then drops her hands back to where they were.

Above her, both her ravens circle.

The sniper crests the ridge, and Lucinda catches the glint off their goggles. They’re wearing an NCR ranger chestplate underneath a dusty grey-brown coat, a long red scarf tied around their waist.

“Someone with power,” Lucinda says. “They have the same scarf I do.”

“Don’t look Legion-y,” Head Vulture says. There’s movement up on the ridge, where the sniper had been at first, and her head snaps up. “There’s someone else up on the ridge.”

“What can you see?”

“Just in a shirt and pants. No armor, no scarf.” She pauses. “No gun, either.”

“They look like a slave?”

“They look free.” Head Vulture shifts, grunts, as she tries to take the weight off her bad leg.

“Same with our sniper,” Lucinda says. “Doesn’t walk like they’re working for the Legion.”

“Doesn’t dress like it either.”

The sniper still has the gun raised, pointed in their general direction, as she crosses the low hill between them. Lucinda and Head Vulture fall quiet as the sniper gets closer.

The sniper stops twenty paces in front of them, gun still raised, feet planted. Underneath the goggles, their face is all flat planes and angles, and their hair lifts in the wind. Their coat drifts, too.

“What are two lovely folks doing out here, right now?” she asks, looks between Head Vulture and Lucinda.

“Doubt we’re doing much different than you two lovely folks,” Head Vulture replies, raises one hand to point at the other figure on the rise. “All sorts of stuff a couple lovely ladies like ourselves could be doing out here.”

“Could be hunting, could be gathering, could be looking for water,” Lucinda supplies.

“Could be hunting cazadores,” Head Vulture offers. 

“Your scarf,” the sniper says, nods to Lucinda. “Where’d you get it?”

Lucinda hesitates a moment, before she inclines her chin.

“Led a contubernium against the NCR, working for Vulpes.”

“Long way from the NCR here.” The sniper lowers her gun, flicks on a safety, swings it onto her back. “And unless an old woman with a cane is what constitutes a contubernium nowadays, it doesn’t look like you've got one of those, either.”

“I deserted a few months ago,” Lucinda agrees.

“Shit, that’s you?” The sniper throws her head back and laughs. “God, they got so many wanted posters up for you. Don’t look like the drawings of you. Courier, right?”

“That’s me,” Lucinda agrees. 

“Then who are you, grandma?” the sniper asks. She crosses her arms, grinning. “Don’t look like you match the descriptions of anyone else on the posters.”

“I’m her aunt,” Head Vulture replies, smiling slowly. “Escaped myself about four years ago.”

“You’re both awful close to Amarillo for being a couple escapees,” the sniper says. She walks closer, digs her hands into her pockets. “Seems like a dangerous place to be when they want _you_ dead and probably want _you_ back.”

“Got some business there,” Lucinda says, turns her head to one side to look at the sniper from the corner of her eye. 

“We might have the same sort of business there,” the sniper says, quieter, maybe ten feet in front of them, where she stops again. “You need someone dead?”

“Need lots of people dead,” Lucinda says, quiet. “But I figured Amarillo is a good place to start.”

“Me too,” the sniper says. “You two need water? Place to sleep tonight?”

“You ain’t earned my trust, yet,” Head Vulture says. “What’s your name? What’s your tribe? Where’s your allegiance? I ain’t gonna drink your water ‘til I know it’s clean.” She straightens up. She’s taller than the sniper, by a little bit. Not by much. 

“Been called Mad Dog, born of the Roadwalkers out of Flatwater. Allegiance is to my wife,” she points back over her shoulder, toward the hill where the other figure stands, “and to whatever and whoever will get me closer to killing Lanius.”

Lucinda throws her head back and laughs.

“I’m going to kill Caesar,” she says. She grins wide. “I’m going to tear his heart out in front of the entire praetorian guard.”

“Then I think you and me are gonna get along just fine,” Mad Dog says, and grins back. “We’re about four hours out of Amarillo, we can take it together.”

Mad Dog turns, begins walking toward the rise. She sticks some part of her hand in her mouth and lets out an ear-piercing whistle. A moment later, after some movement from the figure on the rise, another whistle comes back, at a different pitch.

Head Vulture and Lucinda look at each other, and Lucinda follows first. Head Vulture follows last, keeps scanning the hills around them. In the distance, a plume of smoke rises from a dark blot on the horizon.

***

Mad Dog’s camp looks well lived in--a good-sized firepit dug maybe halfway to knee-deep is the centerpiece of the camp, with a comfortable-sized lean-to against a nearby rockface, a bucket down the hill, seven gecko, four coyote, and two brahmin skulls all over the camp, and a jumble of other bones and food scraps at the edge of the camp. The whole thing is in a low spot, with a blind set up on the dirt hill, and a well-used ladder leading up the rock face.

The other person in the camp is tiny--shorter than Lucinda, even, with big nuka-bottle glasses and locks halfway down her back. She moves away from the one entry to the camp, revolver obvious on her hip, until Mad Dog waves at her, grunts, and then she’s all smiles.

“I’m Singer,” she says. “Tribe out of the Utah, near Nephi. Took our tribe about nine years ago.”

“What tribe?” Head Vulture asks. She looks around until she finds a seat-sized rock, and settles on it, sets her cane aside first, then withdraws her crossbow from under her poncho and sets that aside too. “Know the Roadwalkers,” she waves at Mad Dog, who peels her goggles off to reveal clean tanlines around her eyes, “but I know a good few folks outta the Utah too.”

“Tar Walkers,” Singer says, nods. “Who’re you two?”

“Head Vulture to my clan, Tech Vulture to the tribe at large. Born a Reaver, I’ll die a Bird.” Head Vulture gives a half-assed bow without rising from her seat. “And I’ll die on my own two feet, not ‘cause a legionary decided he wanted someone dead.” She shrugs. 

“Ravenshrike to the Birds, Lucia when the Legion gave me a name,” Lucinda says, straightens her back a little. Her gun is still loaded, and she’s hyperaware of it where it hangs heavy on her back, unnecessary for now. “Born a Bird, and it’s a surprise, but I’ll die one too.”

“She’s the courier Vulpes worries himself sick at night about,” Mad Dog supplies, shrugs off her sniper rifle and sets it against the rock wall. She shucks her coat down to her elbows, revealing bare arms and rippling biceps. She tosses that in the scant shade, near her rifle, and ducks into the lean-to. “She’s gonna kill Caesar, and I’m gonna kill Lanius.”

Singer looks between the lean-to and Lucinda for a moment, mouth open, then nods.

“Hey, Grandma, you need any water?” Mad Dog calls from inside the lean-to. 

“Sure,” Head Vulture agrees. “So what are we doing in Amarillo?”

“Case it, find who’s in charge, kill them.” Mad Dog emerges from the lean-to, passes her a one-quart aluminum canteen.

“Kill more than just him, dump their bodies in the wells. Get slaves out if they'll go, trap the structures the search parties will check. Leave anyone who won’t go.” Lucinda sits on the ground, off to Head Vulture’s side.

“You got grander designs than I did, courier,” Mad Dog says, and grabs a frying pan from its rock. “We can do that though. How many you think will leave?”

“How many people are in Amarillo?” Lucinda asks, sharp, quick, one thought after the other.

“It’s a resupply depot, so probably not more than, mmm.” Mad Dog trails off, sets the frying pan over the firepit, tosses a small block of animal fat into it. “Hundred legionaries. A centurion, probably, some decani. Hundred fifty slaves. Don’t produce anything.”

“No fields to work, so hundred fifty is probably pretty close. Haven’t ever staged a revolution, though, so I dunno how many of them will want to help.” Singer looks between the other three women.

“Outta that many?” Head Vulture asks. “A dozen, at least. Probably not more’n fifty. I’d put the number around twenty though.” She takes a swig of her water. “More women than men. More mothers than maidens. More tribals than townies.”

“You done this before?” Mad Dog laughs. She tosses in a few strips of dried meat, pushes them around with a fork.

“I know who talked and I know who turned a blind eye and I know who helped me smuggle shit out of the workshops. Worked there for eleven years and it was always the same folks.” Head Vulture shrugs, keeps an eye on Mad Dog as she drinks again. “And what’re we, after all? Bunch of tribals old enough to have kids.”

Mad Dog snorts.

“So we target those slaves--how? Dress up and hope they don’t notice we don’t look like the rest of their slaves?”

“Sure.” Head Vulture closes her eyes, tips her face up at the sun, shrugs. She furrows her brows when it’s too bright, even with her eyes closed. “One of us four has to be halfway decent at acting.”

“Well, shit,” Mad Dog sighs. “It’s gonna be straws ‘cause none of us is boring enough to miss. Singer’s got the glasses, you’re an old fart with a cane, courier there has her face plastered on every fucking power pole from here to the Mojave, and they’ve caught me near camp a half dozen times and I don’t think they'll be so nice if they catch me again.”

“I’ll go,” Lucinda interjects, before anyone else can say anything. “I’ve got the wrong hair in the pictures of me, and I can act like a slave. No glasses, no cane, no suspicious tan lines. I leave the birds here, spend four or five days finding who’ll fight and getting them armed, figure out how we get them out and feed them on their way to Matamoros, then I get back out, round all of us up, and then we turn on the legionaries, together.”

“It’s ballsy and it won’t work right, but the other options sitting up here in the hills and playing pop goes the weasel with legionaries as we snipe them. I say we do it.”

“Do we wanna vote?” Head Vulture asks.

“Not sure what all there is to vote on,” Mad Dog replies, shrugs, prods at the meat again.

“Tribe thing,” Lucinda says, settles down with her back to the rest of the camp, puts her rifle in her lap, facing away from anybody, and begins unloading it--lever down, catch the bullet, lever up; lever down, catch the bullet, lever up; lever down, catch the bullet, lever up. “Make sure nobody’s keeping her opinions to herself.”

“I vote in favor of the courier’s plan,” Mad Dog says, stabs a chunk of meat, shakes a couple drops of liquified fat off it, then waves it around for a moment to cool it enough to shove into her mouth as a whole piece.

“I vote in favor too,” Lucinda says.

“In favor,” Singer offers. 

“Me too,” Head Vulture agrees. “Unanimous vote, that’s a new one.”

“Only four of us, ain’t that unlikely, Grandma,” Mad Dog say around a mouthful. “Now, you get two dozen tribals in a group, then we’ll see some interesting voting.”

Head Vulture throws her head back and laughs.


	4. 277 (Antioch)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 4: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6hkbIdycpc).

The moon is still high in the sky, only a sliver missing from its left side. It bathes everything in clean gray light, deepens the shadows cast by the fires in the intersections.

None of the legionaries notice her.

She has the things she needs--her bowie knife, a pouch of healing powder, a bottle of hydra, a half-used stealth boy, a pack and a half of cigarettes and her box of matches--in a cloth bag Mad Dog had handed to her without a word. She carries it clutched close to her chest as she winds deeper into the city--more lights, more people, though at this hour there’s still only a dozen or so in the mile it takes to squirm through a gap in the scrap-and-chain-link fence and reach the slave barracks. The moon has barely moved in the sky by the time she finds the rickety building, and she turns back toward the other nearby buildings. Most of them look well-kept, with clean windows, straight-hung doors, signs hung out front labelling them. Past the main street--heavily guarded, but a straight shot out of town--the city quickly falls into disrepair. Lucinda squats in the shadow of a building, rests her bundle in her lap, stays still and breathes as she listens to two men laugh two buildings over--one sounds young, maybe a teenager. The other sounds older, and says something in a language she doesn’t know--maybe an Arizona tribal. The younger man says something back in what sounds like the same language, and they laugh again.

She makes a mental note of where they are, then turns out toward the ruins of houses and municipal buildings that form most of the horizon here. She can hear the flapping of caught fabric, the creak of old wood and nails, the distant _crack_ and _crash_ of some beam somewhere finally giving way, two hundred years late, but no sounds of people--footsteps, talking, laughter--aside from the ones around the fires. Most of the nearby buildings are cleared away--four or five blocks out, and then another two blocks of ruined buildings, and then the wood-and-metal fence, lights bolted to the top, glowing with the ugly pink-orange Head Vulture had always wrinkled her nose at and cursed.

There’s heavy shadow in the ruined houses, and Lucinda darts across the open spaces, from one drought-blasted tree to the next, until she can scramble under the collapsed beams of a roof, into a tiny pocket of space between the underside of the roof and the splintery dirt. It’s cold, but it’s dry, and she shoves her bag into the farthest back corner, out of the way. 

It’s easy to get back to the slave barracks, and easy enough to get inside them--a side door is locked, but the latch has been jammed open, the same way one of the slaves had done when the tribe had been brought through just about fifteen years before.

She shuts the door silently behind herself, and when she turns around, there’s a middle-aged woman--half her face tattooed, hair going gray, well-defined wrinkles around her eyes and between her brows, dressed in just a slave tunic--staring back at her. She fixes Lucinda with a sharp look, studies her face, her empty hands, looks Lucinda in the eye.

“And who the fuck are _you_?” she asks, voice low. She sounds like a longtime smoker. “You aren’t one of ours, and you ain’t a plant ‘cause she doesn’t show up for another eight days.”

“I’m a courier,” Lucinda says, presses her hands against the door, out to her sides, so the woman--guard, apparently--can see them.

“That why you’re sneaking into the slave barracks at, what is it?” She leans over to look out the window. “Three hours until dawn? Sounds like the truth, why don’t I just give you the run of the place?” She leans forward, slides her hand down her thigh, and Lucinda sees the glint of the homemade knife in her hand.

“My name is Ravenshrike, born to the Birds south of here, Legion-named Lucia and married to an officer in Dog Town. I’m _the_ courier.” She tears her eyes from the knife, looks the woman in the eye.

“Oh, so now I _really_ got a reason to kick you out.” The woman grunts. 

“I’m here to get people out. Kill legionaries.”

“And how are you gonna do that?” the woman asks. She crosses her knees, rests her forearms on them, leans forward with her eyebrows raised. “You have enough weapons to equip everyone here who’s willing and able to hold them? You got the stuff to make a bomb to plant in the admin building? You gonna knife ‘em one by one and hope they don’t notice?” She snorts. “Come back when you’ve got a real plan and not this half-cooked rat shit you’re trying to sell.”

“So you believe me about who I am?” Lucinda asks, lets her shoulders and arms relax until her hands are at her sides.

“I recognized your face, once you said you had a name,” the guard replies. “Seen you on the new coins they’re melting back down, and seen you on the posters. Hey, settle a bet for me, what tribe is your mother from? Nancy has her bet on it that you’re outta Flatwater, but I think you look like you’re born somewhere nearby.” She rummages through the chest of her tunic with one hand, pulls out a pre-war candy tin, pops it open. She takes a pinch of whatever is inside, wads it into her mouth.

“She was Texas Bonebreaker. Why were you betting on this?”

“‘Cause, guess what, officer's wife frumentarius courier, some of us are goddamn slaves, and we don’t have better shit to do. Bonebreaker, huh? Guess I’m not surprised, you look like one of ‘em.”

Lucinda and the guard stare at each other for a moment.

“What do you want me to do?” Lucinda asks, an edge of desperation in her voice. 

“If it were up to me, I’d want you to get the hell out of here and let Dog Town take you again, after what you’ve done to towns and tribes. You ain’t the plant, but you ain’t much better than one. Got a face they know from the Mississippi to the goddamn California coast. We were getting along without you and now we gotta make you work in this system.”

There’s the sound of the floorboards creaking under someone's feet, and the guard falls silent, turns away from Lucinda, toward the hallway.

“Calidia?” another woman asks--elderly, her voice creaky. “Who the hell are you talking to at this time of night? There shouldn’t have been anyone out.” The old woman steps out of the doorway, a blanket draped over her shoulders. 

“We got a visitor,” the guard--Calidia--says, and gestures vaguely at Lucinda, who stays still.

“Not the expected sort of visitor, I take it.” The old woman studies Lucinda. She’s standing well out of the moonlight, and Lucinda can only see her general shape--short, straight-backed, light hair, deep wrinkles. 

“Says she’s here to kill legionaries. Tribal. Courier. That one courier, actually. Supposedly.”

“Tribal, huh?” The old woman approaches the square of moonlight. “What tribe?”

Lucinda snorts softly, closes her eyes, folds her hands behind her back. She squares her shoulders.

“Born to the Birds, south of here,” she says, doesn’t open her eyes.

“Who was your mother?” the old woman asks. 

“An adopted Magpie.” Lucinda opens her eyes. The old woman stands in the moonlight now, her face illuminated. Her eyes are dark, and she has a crescent-shaped scar from her left ear, across her cheek, and up the side of her nose.

“What’s your name?” the old woman demands, leans in. 

Lucinda hesitates for a moment.

“You want the whole introduction?” she asks.

“Hit me,” the old woman says, laughs.

“Born to Adopted Magpie, first named Raven, then named Shrike, then Ravenshrike--” The old woman interrupts with a laugh, but waves or Lucinda to continue. “Grew to adulthood under the Legion, and now I’m making amends.”

The old woman steps forward and holds out her hand. 

“Born to another tribe, but bird-named Magpie. Joined when I was maybe a little younger than you. Which Little Raven were you?”

“West walk. Tech Vulture was one of ours?”

“Ooh, yes, I remember her. How is she nowad--” The Magpie cuts herself off, grimaces. She waves her hand. “Nevermind.”

“She escaped three years ago, on her own. Walks with a cane now, but she’s alive and kicking.” Lucinda hesitates a long moment, looks between Calidia and the Magpie. “She and two other people are with me, outside of town.”

“Who’s still alive at Matamoros?” the Magpie asks. There’s hope in her eyes. 

“Most of them,” Lucinda tells her. “I--I only spent a few days there, I didn’t take the time to make sure I remembered everyone’s faces.”

“You kids,” the Magpie scolds. “Don’t know what you’re missing.”

“So what are we doing here?” Calidia interrupts. She has her arms crossed, her shoulders back. “Do we try to sneak her in as one of ours and hope they don’t notice a new person they’ve never seen before, but looks a lot like that woman on the posters, or do we hide her with the weapons and hope she doesn’t breathe too loud?”

“I can blend in,” Lucinda interjects. 

Calidia and the Magpie both turn to look at her, each with an eyebrow raised.

“You stand too proud,” the Magpie says.

“Look like you’ve eaten more than three meals this week,” Calidia agrees.

“Hair looks like you can and do take care of it.” 

“Young enough you should have a baby, and you don’t.” 

“Don’t look like anyone else here, and we aren’t due for a new group of people for another eight days.” 

“Ain’t got a new tribe in in months.” 

“Nobody here is your friend yet.” 

“Don’t know the names of anyone, even the important ones.” Calidia sighs, and her shoulders relax, though she doesn’t uncross her arms. “I say she goes in with the weapons.”

“And what, just keep me down there for god knows how long?” Lucinda asks.

“You got somewhere you need to be, asskisser?” Calidia asks.

“Cal,” the Magpie sighs. “Really, though, what’s your plan?”

“Make someone go missing, dump him in the well, all of us step up at once to take out the rest of them.”

“Then what's the point of dumping the one in the well?” the Magpie asks.

“Poison the water,” Calidia replies. “Got more than one well,” she says to Lucinda.

“Don’t see why that’s a problem. Not hard to kill more than one of them. I have five days to get everything set up, and then I’ll get my three, and we can move on them.”

“You think you’re in charge of this slave revolt?” Calidia asks. Her mouth crooks into a smirk. “Ain’t no one here gonna listen to you unless we tell ‘em to.”

Lucinda scowls, looks Calidia in the eye, but says nothing. The Magpie clears her throat after a moment.

“Can we rally everyone in five days?” she asks, looks to Calidia. Calidia scratches the back of her head, inspects her nails, sighs and drops her hand.

“We have a hundred and sixty three people to tell about it, and we’re expecting, what, three dozen to pick up knives?”

“Yep,” the Magpie agrees.

“And after we know who’s in, we plan the attack. That’ll be three days, tops.”

“So we can do five days,” the Magpie says, and nods. “We can let you out at night to get some fresh air, do your planning.”

“What’d you bring for a weapon?” Calidia asks, spits into a corner.

“I’ve got a knife.” Lucinda shuffles a little in place.

Calidia and the Magpie stare for a moment, then both throw their heads back to laugh, hands over their mouths to stifle the noise.

“Are you gonna knife the prefect? Just waltz right up and-” Calidia mimes stabbing herself in the throat and makes a _gghk_ noise. She laughs again. “‘Cause that only works once and we already tried it.”

“Distract him first,” Lucinda says.

“Yeah, that’s what we figure. Someone taunting him from outside his office, someone a ways back with a rifle.” She pauses a moment, looks Lucinda over again, evaluating further. “Who are the three you’re gonna get?”

“Head Vulture, from my tribe, and two other tribals. Both of them escaped too.”

“And what are they gonna do?” Calidia asks.

“Mad Dog has a sniper rifle and I think she’s itching for a chance to use it. I don’t know what Singer is gonna do in a fight. Head Vulture has a crossbow.”

“Mad Dog?” the Magpie asks, narrows her eyes. “About yea tall, blonde, swaggers like she shit herself?”

Lucinda snorts and smiles.

“Yeah, her.”

“She’s still around? They’ve picked her up five times and she’s got out every time, and she still hasn’t learned?”

“If it was me, I’d have one hell of a grudge,” Lucinda says, and shrugs.

Calidia considers Lucinda for a moment, then shrugs too.

“So, Mad Dog snipes the prefect. What do we do with the rest of them?”

“Take them all out at the same time?” Lucinda offers. “There can’t be three dozen people who need killed at the same time.”

“We’re lucky if most of these folks have touched a knife, let alone killed an animal, let alone attacked a human being with one.” The Magpie shakes her head. “We can take them out, but it’s not gonna be as easy as you think it is. We can talk it over tomorrow night. I want another couple hours of sleep tonight. Come on.” The Magpie turns, gestures for Lucinda to follow, and Calidia sits back down on her chair with a soft huff.

They go through the halls to the empty front room--past a half dozen rooms full of gently snoring and snuffling men and women, and a room full of nailed-shut crates.

The Magpie squats in the right front corner of the room, feels around in the shadow until she grunts, pulls aside one of the wide, smooth boards, then another, and there's a narrow space someone thin might be able to fit through.

“Down you go,” the Magpie says, and makes a sweeping _welcome home_ gesture. “It’ll be a little tight, but you should fit.”

Lucinda looks down into the dark. It doesn't smell like dirt, or a basement, or even old things. It just smells like the rest of the building--faintly of sweat and paint and floor polish, a little bit of iron in the corners from the nails and the blood, plaster dust and worn leather and flour, a little bit of a shit smell underneath everything else.

“I’ll get you tomorrow night when we can plan. Sit tight, maybe take a nap. Don’t make too much noise. Guards mostly stay outside, but they could still hear you. If you gotta piss, just hold it.” The Magpie offers her hand, and Lucinda takes it, swings down into the hole. It’s a little less than shoulder deep, and Lucinda carefully pushes a few pieces of metal and wood out of the way to sit down. She looks up at the Magpie, who kneels, haloed in moonlight. “Hey, Ravenshrike?” the Magpie asks, reaches for the first floorboard.

“Yeah?” Lucinda asks, tries to settle a little more.

“Ravenshrike, that’s a name. What birds do you carry?” The Magpie puts the first board back in place, narrows Lucinda’s view to a strip of black-molded ceiling and a flash of the Magpie’s shoulder. 

Lucinda hesitates a moment, listens as the Magpies knees scuff on the floor.

“Two ravens and a vulture,” she says finally.

“And how many are for your soul?” the Magpie asks. She leans over, looks at Lucinda’s approximate location. She squihts.

“Just one raven,” Lucinda says, tucks her knees up. She misses having pants to wear.

“And who’s the other for?” the Magpie asks, and starts to slide the board into place.

“The other Little Raven, the one three years older than me.”

“She was ours,” the Magpie says, softly. “I changed that baby’s diapers. Did you at least care enough to make it quick?”

“She didn’t even know it happened,” Lucinda says, also soft. 

“She deserved more than that, but I guess that’s what she got.” The Magpie slides the board back into place, and pats it. “I’ll be back this evening.”

The Magpie’s footsteps disappear back into the hall, then fade entirely.

Lucinda stares into the dark, and wishes she had a cigarette.

***

It’s Calidia who gives her a hand out of the pit, points her to the bucket in the corner of the room, waits while Lucinda relieves herself.

“Most of them are onboard for a revolutions, but not all of ‘em wanna follow you,” Calidia says, as they stand in the hallway outside one of the dorm rooms. “You’ll get your revolution, but it’ll be with our help.”

“That’s fine.” Lucinda nods, straightens herself.

Calidia snorts, grins.

“You say that now.”

She opens the door, and steps in. Lucinda follows.

The entire room looks like they’re asleep, and Calidia ducks down, out of the way of the windows. Lucinda ducks too, follows Calidia over to a pair of empty beds.

“They’ll notice if they walk by and someone is upright,” Calidia says, not even whispering. She climbs into one bed, and Lucinda gets into the one next to her. “Is everyone here who wants to be here?” Calidia asks.

“Yeah,” “Yes,” “Yep,” “Mm-hmm,” comes the chorus of voices from all around the room. Most are women, though there are a few men scattered around the room, too. Head Vulture's statement-- _More women than men; more mothers than maidens; more tribals than townies_ \--rings through Lucinda’s head. It’s hard to hear age in a voice, but a few voices seem rougher, older, deeper, than the others, and there are a handful of accents.

“Alright. Rest of you, close your damn ears.”

There’s a soft chuckle through the whole room.

“So we've got our opening. Courier here distracts the prefect, or maybe someone else if one of you wants to stab the bastard with a stick, and she gets Mad Dog to snipe him from wherever she’s at. Anyone wanna volunteer to stab the prefect?”

“I will,” someone from the far end of the room says--a woman, voice low and rough, heavy Colorado accent dripping from her words. “Bastard deserves a few good stabs.” There’s another ripple of laughter.

“Who else needs to be taken out?” Calidia asks.

“Dogman,” a younger woman’s voice offers. She sounds local--maybe Bonebreaker, maybe Southern Reaver, maybe one of the towns. “Give me one of the machetes and let me go to town.”

“Anyone else wanna help her out?” Calidia asks.

“I will,” a man says--same accent, also young.

“And me.” Another woman, older, different accent--Flatwater, probably.

“Sky, you take the rifle. Willy, Maria, you two take the knives.”

“Why the rifle?” the younger woman asks.

“Dogs,” Calidia replies. “Who else needs to go?”

“Slavemasters.” This voice is an old man. “And I’ll do it. I know when they’ll be where. Get me a gun and five other people and we can kill them all.”

“Who wants to go?” Calidia asks.

Eight voices, scattered across the room, volunteer in a soft murmur.

“Who else needs to go to cripple this town?”

“Quartermaster. He doesn’t have to die, he just needs stopped,” the Magpie finally says. She’s three beds down from Calidia, in the corner. “I can take him on my own.”

“Courier, you go with her anyway,” Calidia orders.

“Alright,” Lucinda agrees. The Magpie snorts.

“I need fifteen of you at the barracks. Guard the doors, don’t let anyone in or out unless you can vouch for them.”

“Why fifteen?” asks a woman--older, definitely Bonebreaker--directly across the room from Lucinda.

“‘Cause they’ll put up a fight and most of you're gonna be shit at hurting people. You lean on those doors and keep them in place. Maybe a couple of you get the spine to stab someone to prove a point.”

The other woman snorts, and laughs a little.

“Alright,” she agrees. 

“The last eight of you, do what you can wherever you can. spread out across the town and take anyone prisoner if they get in your way. Shoot them, even, if you want.”

“So when do we do all of this?” someone asks. It’s a new voice--a young woman, sounds like she’s from Flatwater.

“In a few days. We can put the weapons together the night after tomorrow night.”

“Got it. I’ll see if we can get any more bodies.”

“Alright, folks. Magpie, Courier, either of you have anything else you need?”

“I think that's everything,” the Magpie says. “I got nothing.”

“Me either,” Lucinda agrees.

“Great. Everybody go to sleep.” Calidia stands up, beckons Lucinda to follow. Lucinda hesitates a moment before getting up too, follows Calidia back out to the front room.

“Hey, Cal?” Lucinda asks, as Calidia levers up the floorboards again.

“Yeah?” Calidia asks, doesn’t look up at Lucinda.

“Can you ask Magpie if she remembers the way back to Matamoros? And tell me if she does?”

“Is that some sort of code?” Calidia asks.

“No, it’s a question. Matamoros is where I came from. It’s--you’re gonna have to leave here after you take over. The news will get back to New Vegas and they’ll send people to enslave all of you again. You’re going to have to leave, and Matamoros is a safe place to go to. The Legion doesn’t know where it is.”

“I’ll ask. Can’t guarantee anyone else will want to leave.”

“It’s not negotiable, if you don’t leave they’ll just kill everyone here.”

“Yeah?” Calidia asks, nods, eyebrows raised. “I’ll tell ‘em but I don’t think it'll change any minds.”

“Thanks. Hey, before I go back down, can I go get my things? I gotta smoke.”

Calidia freezes.

“You’ve got cigarettes? How many?”

“Thirty-eight. I have more back at our base camp, but--”

“If you can get me fifteen of those cigarettes, I can get everyone here to agree to go to Matamoros.”

“It’s a deal.” Lucinda holds out one hand, and Calidia shakes.

“Go out the door you came in last night. They never watch that one, we got them convinced it was painted shut.”

“Got it.” Lucinda nods, and Calidia puts the floorboards back.

It’s easy to get back to her cache, and she counts seventeen cigarettes into a cardboard pack, shoves it into her shirt, next to her pack of matches. After a moment, she shoves her sheathed knife and the stealth boy into her shirt too--better to have her hands free.

Calidia is waiting on her chair again when Lucinda returns.

“You have matches?” Lucinda asks by way of greeting.

“We have enough. We’re only gonna get one cigarette each. If we have to we can light them off other cigarettes.”

Lucinda nods, digs out the pack, counts out fifteen cigarettes.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

Calidia stands and disappears into the dorm room, and after a moment, Lucinda returns to the front room, lights her own cigarette, rests her head against the wall, and thinks over her escape plan.


	5. 372 (Rockport)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNINGS FOR VIOLENCE AND AN EXPLICIT BUT NON-GRAPHIC MENTION OF THE DEATH AND TORTURE OF A CHILD**
> 
> A song for Chapter 5: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEMPiELzZqs).

Mad Dog can see Lucinda coming across the flats from half a mile out, even in the dark--she’s the only thing moving like she is, in zig zagging lines, from place to place, instead of just blowing in place from the breeze.

She’s quiet, at least, as she climbs the hill. Head Vulture and Singer are both pretending they’re asleep--Singer in the lean-to, Head Vulture sitting up against the rock wall, crossbow at-hand.

Lucinda crests the hill, eventually, and Mad Dog waves one hand over her shoulder to beckon her over.

“So how are we going in?” she asks.

“You get to shoot the prefect. One of the women volunteered to distract him while you took your shot. After that, I think you’re free to shoot whoever you want.” Lucinda squats next to Mad Dog, doesn’t get comfortable. Both Singer and Head Vulture shift in place, Singer pulling herself halfway out of the lean-to, Head Vulture straightening her shoulders and grunting as she pops the joints in her back. Lucinda fiddles with a few loose pieces of dirt and shale, sends them pattering down the hillside.

“And what about you and Grandma back there?” Mad Dog jerks her head back to indicate Head Vulture.

“I was nominated to go with a Magpie to take out the quartermaster. Head Vulture is free to do whatever she wants.”

“I wanna shoot somebody,” Head Vulture offers, and drags herself to her feet. “Which Magpie?”

“She looked a little younger than you, said she joined a little younger than me.” Lucinda turns, shuffles a half-step over so she can squat with Mad Dog and Head Vulture both in her sight.

“Mmm, that Magpie. A very good cook. Made the best tortillas that ever came outta that kitchen.”

“She asked how you were. I told her you escaped.” Lucinda shrugs.

Head Vulture throws her head back and laughs.

“That how you introduce me to everyone now?”

“Pretty much,” Lucinda agrees. “People respect that.”

“When do we move?” Mad Dog interjects, cutting off Head Vulture from whatever she was about to say next.

“A couple hours past midnight. Late enough there won’t be many people out on the streets, and early enough that most of them won’t have started their days yet.”

“Then we oughta leave soon. Singer, you comin’ along?”

“Nah, I’ll clean up here, get into town around noon. Give you all time to get things in order, let the fighting die down.”

“Gotcha. Bring along stuff to make traps. Tripwires, what we have to set up explosives, that one mantrap we found. We’re gonna trap this place to the gills.” Mad Dog stands up, turns toward the lean-to to find her pack. Head Vulture begins to gather her things, too--digs out her box of bolts and starts counting them out into her hip quiver; ten plain, five cazador. Singer moves, too, but she just adjusts her blanket and curls up to watch.

Lucinda digs her clothes out of her own pack, changes into her t-shirt and jeans. She leaves her coat where it lies, hung over and anchored on a rock so the ravens can nest in the hood. Up on the rock, her vulture is hunkered down--and another, larger, more-fledged vulture sits next to it, not moving in the dark.

“No sign of Henny?” Head Vulture asks, when Lucinda sits down and starts going through her bag, deciding what to bring with. 

“Doubt they'd send any of us back closer to where they found us,” Lucinda replies, shrugs. “Might be a note in a ledger somewhere, but I didn't go looking.”

“Mmkay,” Head Vulture grunts. “I'll see if I can get in there after we’ve secured everything.”

“Calidia says they keep it unlocked, the slaves don’t escape and it’s easier to come and go for official business that way.” Lucinda looks at her cardboard box of bullets, thinks for a stretch before she counts twenty-four bullets onto her thigh.

“Not a lot of trying, then, I’m not gonna complain.” Head Vulture picks up her crossbow, turns it back and forth, checks the bowstring and limbs and stock.

“Don’t overexert yourself,” Lucinda murmurs, and begins to load her gun-- _click_ , _click_ , _click_ , _click_ , _click_ , _click_ , _click_ , _click_. “Need you to walk back out of town without taking a week-long rest.”

“Aw, c’mon, you gotta expect more of me than _that_.” Head Vulture leans over to whack Lucinda on the shoulder, and Lucinda sways with it, laughs too. “Come on, Little Bird, if I can walk outta Red Springs on a bad leg, I can deal with a few too-comfortable Legion shits and then walk back out of town.”

“Alright, alright, alright.” Lucinda laughs, waves one hand at Head Vulture. “I’ll give you more credit than that.”

In the lean-to, Singer and Mad Dog sit hip to hip and talk quietly, Mad Dog’s chin on Singer’s shoulder. Singer snorts in response to something Mad Dog says, and they part with a quick kiss.

“You scout out anywhere for me to park my rifle on your way out?” Mad Dog asks, and drops a bandolier over her head, snakes one arm through it.

“There’s five or six buildings in town you can set up on top of, for the best sightlines.” Lucinda reaches for her pack, digs out a long pocket of stiff leather, starts sliding the rest of the bullets--sixteen, one after the other, tight together--into it. “Might have to do a little jumping to get to some of them, but they’re all pretty close to other buildings that you can cimb easy.” She slides the full pocket into her own pocket, then straps her knife to her thigh. “I’m not on prefect stabbing, so I can’t get him anywhere for sure, but I can let the woman who’s on prefect stabbing know where you want her.”

“If she can get him outside, and standing relatively still, I can hit him.” Mad Dog slings her rifle over her shoulder, tests the strap, seems quickly satisfied with it.

“I’ll pass it along.” 

“Where are you gonna go, Grandma?” Mad Dog asks. “Said you wanted to shoot somebody.”

“I think Calidia could use the help. I think she was gonna go try to distract anyone who might try to get between us and the prefect.”

“Sounds like it’ll be fun,” Head Vulture agrees, and grins big.

Lucinda scrambles to her feet, then offers her hand to Head Vulture, who pulls herself upright with the offered assistance before she grabs her cane.

“See you around lunchtime,” Mad Dog calls back to Singer, then sets off down the hill.

***

Mad Dog chooses a building devoid of people, full of only boxes and bags and dog cages, to set up on top of. The Magpie lets her into it with a homemade-looking key and a wink, and points her toward the creaky staircase with roof access.

Lucinda huddles in the corner of the bunk room, rifle set on its butt and pointed toward the ceiling, one hand wrapped tight around the action and the other tight around the forestock, cigarette between her lips, unlit. Around her, the other men and women shuffle in their beds, hold their guns or knives or machetes or hammers close, wait for Calidia and the Magpie to come back.

“You good here without backup?” Calidia asks Head Vulture, scans the street again. There are three soldiers, at the far end, at the far end of what Head Vulture says is the effective range of her crossbow. “Got a man with a rifle who could help.”

“I got it,” Head Vulture replies, lifts her crossbow so the stock is against her shoulder, looks down the sights at the men, who laugh at some joke. “I’m old, not incompetent.”

“How many did you kill to get out of Red Springs?” Calidia asks, crosses her arms, leans forward to squint at the soldiers.

“Seven men and four dogs,” Head Vulture replies, and lowers her crossbow. “If you’re gonna get back to the barracks, get a move on. Not gonna sit here and think about shooting angles forever.”

“When we hear them yell, we’ll break cover and start the takeover.”

Calidia turns and disappears into the alley, and Head Vulture raises her bow again, takes aim, and rests her finger against the trigger.

***

The first noise is a scream, and Calidia is out the door in a flash, the Magpie and Lucinda close behind. Calidia swings her machete in a smooth, wide arc, catches one surprised man on the side of the neck, then yanks her machete away and swings again, sends him to the ground, wide-eyed and gurgling.

Lucinda turns her gun on the last standing guard--the one who screamed is on the ground, shrieking and clawing at his chest, where a feather-fletched eight-inch barb protrudes from between his second and third rib--but before she can fire his head is gone with a sharp crack.

She can feel flecks of something--blood, brain, muscle--on her face, but she and the Magpie turn as one and head down the street, toward where Head Vulture reloads her crossbow, next to the quartermaster’s office.

The door to another building opens, when they’re halfway there, and Lucinda doesn’t stop, doesn’t think, but brings her rifle up, and fires, smooth and easy-- _boom_ , lever down, case ejected, lever up--and the legionary goes toppling back into the dark of the building.

Head Vulture gives Lucinda and the Magpie a thumbs up as they approach.

“Give ‘em hell!” she calls, grins, and hefts her crossbow again.

The Magpie salutes, and grins back.

Lucinda takes the door, three solid kicks from the heel of her boot, right at the knob-- _crack_ , _cr-ack_ , _bang_ \--and leads the way in, the Magpie just behind her at her right elbow.

The quartermaster is out of bed, in just leggings, scrambling for his armor, when the Magpie throws open his door, takes three steps across the room, and holds the knife to his throat.

Behind her, Lucinda raises her rifle, takes aim, keeps her finger on the trigger.

“You sit back down and you stay real quiet,” the Magpie says. The quartermaster slowly backs up, sits on his cot. “Hands where I can see ‘em. Ravenshrike, keep the gun on him.”

The Magpie’s voice is low, even, calm. The quartermaster puts his hands on his thighs, digs his fingers in.

“Good.” The Magpie puts away her knife, starts yanking open drawers. She’s on the third drawer when she pulls out a pair of handcuffs and grins. “Keep your indiscretions to yourself next time,” she taunts, and jingles the handcuffs. “Hands behind your back. Don’t even think about trying to get out of this room.”

Outside, there are three gunshots, and someone screams the way the first soldier did.

‘What’s going on?” the quartermaster asks, voice shaking. The Magpie walks around behind him, snaps the cuffs on.

“It’s not your town anymore, babe,” the Magpie says, steps back around him, turns to pat his cheek with a smile. “You sit tight and chew that one over until Calidia decides she doesn’t trust you.”

The Magpie waves Lucinda out of the room, and follows close behind.

“Less blood than I expected,” Lucinda murmurs, just inside the door.

“He deserved some humiliation,” the Magpie replies, and pushes the door open as se draws her knife again. “Cal might take a knife to him later. She’s the one who knew about the cuffs in the first place.”

There’s a third scream, and Lucinda and the Magpie step out into the street just in time to see someone throw a lit torch up onto the roof of the big building at the end of the street, as the woman who volunteered to stab the prefect dances back and forth between a man’s--presumably the prefect’s--wild swings with a machete. They’re both yelling--loud wordless bellows and snarls--and Calidia stands thirty feet away, her own machete drawn, but unmoving, watching as the woman and the prefect dodge each other.

There’s the crack of a rifle, and the prefect collapses, a hole between his eyes and the back of his head spread across the front door of the building.

The rest of the town falls without without too much struggle, and what struggle there is, Calidia and Mad Dog end with wordless bullets.

***

Head Vulture finds Lucinda, as the chaos dies down and the east horizon starts to turn a soft blue.

“Gonna go inside to dig through papers. Could use another pair of hands. Magpie already said she’d come with, but I figured we could make it into a nice little tribe bonding activity.”

She’s leaning heavier on her cane, which seems to be sinking more into the churned-up dirt and mud. 

“Yeah, I’ll come help,” Lucinda agrees. She pushes off the wall where she’s been leaning, watching women come and go under Calidia and Mad Dog’s directions, and follows Head Vulture back up to the prefect’s building.

The Magpie is already half-heartedly kicking at a locked office door, and Head Vulture stands back to watch her, grinning.

“You got it under control?” she asks.

“He didn't have the keys on him. Figured I’d try the door without.”

Head Vulture steps closer, leans down, casts a look at the Magpie from the corner of her eye.

“Don’t think it’s workin’, Bess.”

The Magpie snorts and laughs.

“Me’n Little Bird will go find the keys, you keep workin’ that door over. You’ll get through it eventually.” Head Vulture claps the Magpie on the shoulder, heads deeper into the building. Lucinda shrugs when the Magpie gives her a questioning look, and follows Head Vulture.

Most of the doors are open, into dusty offices full of crates and filing cabinets. but a handful at the end of the hallway are closed, locked, and have signs hanging on them, that Lucinda can’t read until she’s closer. They all say DO NOT OPEN, with another smaller sentence underneath.

Head Vulture bangs on the first one--labeled DO NOT OPEN - WOMAN, FLATWATER, WANTED--with the side of her fist.

“Hey, who’s in there?” she calls.

“Fuck off!” someone cheerfully calls back, and Lucinda freezes.

“Where are the keys?” Lucinda asks, loud enough to be heard through the door.

There's a long, long silence, then the sound of fabric on fabric, and then barefoot footsteps on linoleum.

“Hey Boss,” says Runner, on the other side of the door. “Long time no see.”

“Still no see, I’d say,” Head Vulture interjects with a smile, and there’s another moment of silence where no one reacts.

“The keys to all the rooms should be on a key ring. I think they keep it at the end of the hall, hanging on a hook. I saw whatsisname with the keys most often,” Runner says. There’s a soft thump like someone leaning hard on a door.

“The prefect didn’t have them on him, I’ll go check the hook.” Lucinda trots off down the hallway, leaves Head Vulture standing by the door.

“That was a good joke,” Head Vulture pouts to the door. Behind it, Runner laughs. “So, you two know each other?”

“Yeah,” Runner agrees, rattles the knob. “Ran with her and Siri for nine months or so, helped her terrorize some towns. Scattered when we got the chance.” She pauses. “Where is Siri? Is she alright?”

“She’s doing great,” Head Vulture replies. “Very sweet, very smart, she’s back at our home base, waiting for this whole town to show up so she can tell you you’re all low on vitamins.”

Runner laughs, and Head Vulture grins.

Lucinda comes back down the hallway with the keyring in one hand, flipping through the keys until she finds the one marked MASTER. She doesn’t say anything as she unlocks the door and pulls it open.

Runner is thinner than she was--dark circles under her eyes, hair just starting to grow out from being buzzed, bruises across her cheeks and arms--and she looks angry, something deep and smoldering in the set of her jaw and the draw of her eyebrows.

“Drummer and Burn are here too,” she says, plucks the keys from Lucinda's hands as she breezes past. “There’s a few other prisoners, but those are the two you would know.”

“Why are you all the way down here?” Lucinda asks, trails after Runner, who heads down the hallway, reading signs as she goes. “Thought you were going to Flatwater to look for your tribe.”

“Found ‘em,” Runner says, stops in front of a door. “Found all of ‘em. Found all of ‘em on crosses.” She stops with the knob, takes two deep breaths before she goes back to trying to get the key into the hole with shaking hands. “Every last one of ‘em. And you know who I find at the end of that line of crosses all down the Eighty? I find my wife and my five year old son.” Her hands are still shaking, but her face is carefully, perfectly blank, her eyes wide and unblinking, as she finally gets the door open. “So I found ‘em, Lucia. I sure as hell found ‘em.”

She pushes the door open, and it’s Burn--her head also shaved, also thin, also bruised, also filled with an obvious, smoldering fury--who’s behind it.

“So we came down here because we heard they might be sending troops this way. Made a mistake, got caught, been here for about a month.”

Burn and Runner advance as one on the rest of the doors, and wordlessly Burn beckons Runner over when she finds the right one.

“So what are you doing here?” Burn asks.

“I’m going to kill Caesar,” Lucinda says, and Runner and Burn both stare at her for a long moment.

“Yeah?” Runner asks. “That thought gonna let you sleep at night?”

Burn is the one who pulls the door open, to be greeted by Drummer, who slowly wraps her arms around Burn, then pulls away to do the same to Runner, who takes her with open arms. 

“‘Cause the damage is already done, Lucia. Been done since you thought you could get a longer leash by tightening someone else’s.” Runner closes her eyes, rocks a little as Drummer holds her tighter.

“Here’s the keys,” Burn says, holds them up. Head Vulture holds out her hand to take them, and Burn lofts them slow and easy into it. “Rest of the rooms are empty. Heard you talking to someone up front, go on.”

“What’re you three gonna do?” Head Vulture asks, lets her eyes drift half-closed as she leans on her cane, jingles the keys in her hand.

“Got nowhere to go,” Runner says, finally pulls away from Drummer.

“Could use more people with us,” Head Vulture offers. “It’s us two and two others. Since Little Bird knows you, I’d trust you at my back.”

“We can talk more in a bit. I want out of here, first,” Runner says, sighs. Drummer takes her hand, tugs her away down the hall. Burn follows.

Head Vulture looks to Lucina, raises her eyebrows.

“Didn’t seem real pleased to see you.”

“I didn’t do anything to her,” Lucinda replies, crosses and uncrosses her arms as she looks at the contents of the room Runner came out of--a bucket in one corner, a cot, the rest of the room bare and empty of even picture-hanging nails and drop ceiling tiles.

“Nothing to her, huh?”

“I didn’t touch her tribe, or her, or anyone she knew,” Lucinda insists, scowls. 

“Seems like the sort that’ll give us an earful when she wants to,” Head Vulture snorts, and pats Lucinda’s shoulder. “I’m gonna take these keys back up to Bess, you do whatever the hell you want. Go help Mad Dog, maybe. Tell her we got three more bodies with us.”

“They haven’t committed to anything yet.” Lucinda shrugs off Head Vulture’s hand, and starts down the hallway.

“They will. First one said she ain’t got anywhere to go, right? Where’s better to go than with us.”

Lucinda snorts, shakes her head.

‘We’ll see.”

“I’m right, Little Bird!” Head Vulture calls after her. “You better believe me!”


	6. 159 (Wondrous Love)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 6: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZkVDwJT1I4).

“Amelia?” Siri asks at breakfast, prodding at her stiff, cooling oatmeal with a scowl on her face.

“Mmmm?” Amelia grunts, eyebrow raised, as she looks up from her own near-empty bowl. 

“Is there any sort of courier service here? Can I send a letter or a package to somebody?”

“Oh, yeah. One of the boys will usually take mail out when someone has something they want delivered. If one woman wants to send something, the rest of us can usually come up with something to make it worthwhile.” Amelia scoops up the last of her oatmeal, shoves the overfull spoon in her mouth, and swallows. “Who d’you wanna write a letter to?”

“That one radio station. The one I usually listen to.” She reaches for her mug of coffee--it took her two weeks and a concerted effort from Swan, Amelia, and one of the other Seagulls before she found a recipe she liked--and takes a sip, still staring at her stiff oatmeal.

“They read letters over the air sometimes, you sure you’re ready for that?” Amelia asks, smiles. “Hear your name out there on the air for a hundred miles around?”

“There’s no one in a hundred miles who knows who I am,” Siri says, takes another sip of her coffee. “I don’t see why that should bother me.”

“Woulda terrified me for the first five years they kept me around.” She laughs a little. “I think Maria was going to get started on repainting the eyrie, you want me to come get you once we start?”

“Huh-mmm.” Siri shakes her head. “I’ll come up after lunch.”

“Think we’ll be in the flight room by then. Probably. You know how these things go.” Amelia laughs again, pats Siri’s hand as she stands and leaves the room, coffee in one hand.

Siri finishes off the last of her oatmeal--tries to not notice how cold, stiff, and gelatinous it is now--and takes her bowl to the kitchen, adds it to the stack of unwashed dishes.

She stops in her room, digs through the slowly-filling third drawer of her dresser until she finds a pen and a half used pad of lined paper, which she tucks under her elbow and takes over to the clinic.

She settles on one of the cots, sets her coffee aside on the bedside table, and rests the pad of paper on her knees. She sets the pen on the page and thinks a long, long time, brow furrowed, before she begins to write.

_To the staff at XEBT,_

_I was captured and enslaved four and a half years ago, and only now have truly felt myself free…_

***

“That was Manuel Flores Ortiz, playing a piece of his own composition,” the DJ says, voice low and smooth. There’s the soft sound of Manuel in the background, moving out of the studio, and then the flutter of a few papers. “We have a letter here today, from a listener. it’s been a long time since we got a letter, and I thought I’d read this one over the air for all of you.”

Siri doesn’t look up from her diagram of a human abdominal cavity as compared to a that of a gecko, but at the word _letter_ she tunes out the pictures and tunes in her ears.

“Alright, bear with me while I read this letter. We get a lot of different sorts of notes here, and not a lot of long stuff. Here goes.

“‘To the staff of XEBT, I was captured and enslaved four and a half years ago, and only now have truly felt myself free. I was led by someone I trusted, to the tribe that raised her, and on my fourth night with them, one of them gifted me a radio. Yours was the first station I found, and when I heard Manuel play something I recognized from when I was young, I was moved’--hey, that’s what we do here!” the DJ laughs, loud and happy. “That’s what we like to hear! Alright, alright--‘when I heard Manuel play something from when I was young, I was moved, and I spent the night crying, in a good way. I listen to your station every night before I go to sleep, and often let it run all night so I wake up to it.’ You know, my Mama would do that when I first started working here too? I thought it was embarrassing at first, but nowadays I’d love to listen to myself talk all day and night.” He laughs again, and Siri finally closes her notebook. “Anyway... ‘so I wake up to it. I find your show endlessly comforting, to where the others will tease me about how often I listen to it. I wanted to send a letter to say thank you. If I can, I would like to request a song.”

Tears stream down Siri's cheeks--it’s not even an emotion she can name, but whatever it is, there’s a lot of it--and she bites down on her thumb to keep from sobbing out loud as the DJ continues to talk, signs off for the night, and puts on the song she requested.

The song is well into its second verse, the singer requesting her burial with a stone at her head and her feet, when someone knocks on her door and pushes it open, and Siri does her best to swallow down the crying. It doesn’t work, but Swan makes no comment as she sits down next to Siri, puts a hand between her shoulderblades and rubs.

“Amelia and Cardinal started yelling when they heard your letter on the radio,” she says, and laughs. Siri leans into the touch, shuffles her notebook off her lap onto the bed in a mess of papers and pencils. “‘That’s our Vulture! That’s our Vulture!’ over and over again until Regina yelled at them to quiet down.” She laughs, and Siri tries to laugh with her, but it comes out as a strangled squeak. “I thought the two of them were trying to summon you, with the way they were dancing around and waving their arms. ‘Doctor! Doctor! We heard you on the radio and we think that's just so cool!’” Swan waves her free arm around above her head. “You feeling alright about the whole thing?”

“For now, yes,” Siri agrees, wipes the snot away with the back of her hand, tries to surreptitiously wipe it on her pants. “A little embarrassed, but nothing worse than that.”

“Funny how it doesn’t feel like your words when it’s all the way out there, huh?” Swan drops her hand from Siri’s back, lens on the edge of the bed hard with the heels of her hands. “Helps with the panic, at least.”

“It does,” Siri agrees. “Thank you. Tell the others I appreciate how excited they are, but I don’t want to hear it over breakfast.”

“Sure thing,” Swan agrees, and smiles.

***

It’s the middle of the night--the radio music has ticked over from _norteño_ to European-style classical the way it always does between midnight and four--when Siri wakes all at once, heart pounding, fear flooding her veins. She stays perfectly still as her heart hammers in her ears, so loud it’s hard to think past-- _whunk_ , _whunk_ , _whunk_ , _whunk_ , _whunk_.

“ _Four and a half years ago...led out by someone I trusted,_ ” echoes in her mind and the hammering of her heart just gets more insistent.

What if someone from the Legion heard?

What if they can track her down with that?

What if they send a frumentarius to the station, or what if one already works there, what if someone listening sends word back to Caesar and Vulpes finds her from there--they’re already looking for her.

What if this is the thing that leads the Legion to their doorstep.

She’s out of bed, pulling on her pants and a shirt in a barely-awake haze, her hands moving on their own accord as the fear builds from something nameless and indistinct into complicated but plausible panic--of course they would listen to the radio, of course there’s a “wanted” note out for her, of course they’re not so stupid they won’t put all the details in that letter together, of course they can harass the radio station, or not even harass, maybe the station will just turn over where the letter came from. Why didn’t she change her name, why did she send the letter, why didn’t she cover her tracks better, she got too comfortable here, too used to not worrying about Otho and his games or Antony and his dogs or Vulpes and his moods or Lanius and the way he moved like he owned every person he looked at or Caesar and his dismissal or or or or--

She’s past the kitchen, headed down the stairs, on the landing, before her brain is seeing what her eyes are seeing again, but even then she can’t stem the tide of fear that’s churning in her stomach, whipping up a racket in her head, leaving her shivering and trying to hold her arms still.

The only light that's on down the whole first basement hall is the bathroom light, which is on every night anyway, and without even thinking Siri just continues down the stairs, down one flight, across the landing, down another flight, looks down this hallway.

There are two lights on in this hallway--the bathroom, and one door Siri can count down to as Swan’s in the sliver of light from the bathroom.

She heads toward it, pauses before she knocks.

She can hear a radio on inside--not XEBT, something from up north that plays country music, and Swan humming along. There’s a single scuff of fabric across fabric, and she knocks, opens the door.

Swan looks up, eyes wide.

“What happened?” she asks, starts to set down her sewing--a quilt, patterned with yellow suns on a dark orange background--and stand.

“I--what if they can find us here?” Siri asks, voice strangled. She can feel tears welling up, and struggles to squash them.

“They don’t know where we are,” Swan says, sits back down, holds out her hand. Siri comes to sit next to her, pats her feet on the floor and tries to sink into the rhythm. It doesn’t work.

“But what if they heard the letter, and they go get it from the station, and they come find us? What if I just made sure everyone here is--”

“Are you going to be able to sleep?” Swan asks, cuts Siri off. It’s not a rebuke, it’s a question--a little loud, to stop Siri, but it’s not yelling and it’s not angry.

“No,” Siri replies, tucks herself tighter.

“Alright. You and me, let’s go up to the roof.” Swan stands up, grabs her jacket from the back of the door--it’s a nice one, made of bighorner leather through the sleeves and torso, and radbuffalo leather through the front and shoulders, with a great arch-necked swan, its wings spread and beak open, embroidered on the back in white thread. She pulls it on with a shrug.

“The roof?” Siri asks.

“The roof,” Swan confirms. “Let’s stop at the armory before we go up, though. Have you ever used a gun?”

“I don’t like them. They make me nervous.”

“You wanna learn?” Swan asks.

“No,” Siri replies, feels a new anxiety lance through her.

“Alright, well, you and me, I’m gonna go shoot some targets from the roof. I want you to come along.” Swan starts up the hallway, and Siri half-jogs to catch up and keep up.

“Why me?” Siri asks. Her shivering is slowing down, but she’s starting to wish for a jacket. The building cools off a lot at night, and the breeze on top of the building will just make it cooler.

Swan doesn’t give her time to get a jacket, though, just heads up the flights of stairs, past the floor full of bird cubicles, past the eyrie, which still smells strongly of new paint, and up to the last floor, through the door, grabs a key off a hook next to the second door, marked ARMORY in clean black painted letters.

“I think it’ll help. Made me feel less powerless at first.” She fumbles the key into the lock on the knob. “We don’t have a lot of guns, only about twenty, but we have some for every occasion. Pistols, sniper rifles, hunting rifles, shotguns.” She gets the knob unlocked and pushes the door open, tosses a grin over her shoulder, back at Siri, who finds she’s stopped shivering. “I like the shotguns best, myself, but I think for tonight we want a hunting rifle.”

Siri follows Swan into the room--there’s one work station with pieces of metal and wood scattered across it, and an unfolded newspaper covering about half of it, DO NOT TOUCH - PROJECT IN PROGRESS written on it in what Siri can recognize is Head Vulture’s handwriting, from the ownership tag on her bedroom door in the basement. The rest of the workstations--five of them--are cleared, clean, and squared away ,with little boxes of screws, chipped-paint rusted toolboxes, and an oil lantern set aside or ceiling-mounted electrical light hanging above. Along the left wall are the guns--three five-racks of ballistic rifles and laser rifles and shotguns, every slot filled, and a pistol rack--this one six-slot--bolted to the wall at chest level, each slot also filled, with a big metal trunk beneath it, marked AMMO in the same clean black stencil-painted letters as the door. Along the back wall, there are eight mid-size crates, marked EXPLOSIVE - NO OPEN FLAME in pre-war-faded writing. Along the right wall, there are a few floor-to-ceiling machines Siri doesn’t recognize. None of them look recently used.

Swan shears over toward the guns, unlocks the first rack with another key off the ring.

“You sure you don’t want some practice with one?” she asks. “All we’re gonna shoot are some street signs and maybe a wild dog if it tries to harass the chickens.”

“No, thank you,” Siri replies. 

“Alright.” Swan shrugs, grabs a hunting rifle. “Can you hold this for just a moment while I get the ammo?” She holds the gun out to Siri, and Siri hesitates a long moment before she takes it, holds it at arm’s length. Swan closes and locks the rack again, then heads to the trunk, unlocks that, and digs until she finds a box of the right ammunition, then closes and locks the trunk.

She takes the gun back from Siri, and leaves the armory door open as she heads back to the staircase, and up the last flight of stairs. Siri follows.

There’s gravel on the roof, and it crunches, loud, in the silence. It’s humid outside, and Siri feels her shirt stick to her skin as soon as they hit the fresh air. Swan rolls her shoulders under her jacket.

“Alright. What direction do you think they'd come from?” Swan asks. “The radio station is over there--” She pivots, points straight west. “And you and Ravenshrike came from there--” She turns to point north. “Our front gate is there--” She points straight east. “Which way will they come from?”

“Not east,” Siri says. “If--if they follow Lucy and I, they’ll come from the north. If they come from the station, they’ll come from the west.”

“So we’ll check those two first.” Swan trots off toward the north edge of the roof. Siri stays where she is, looks around--it’s a different world from up here, and she gets a flash of dizziness as she looks out across the ruined city, with its crumbling façades and collapsed towers and burned-to-the-ground residential districts. Swan drops to one knee, sets down her rifle and ammunition, then takes off her jacket. She’s in just a nightgown and slippers, as she loads the rifle, her scalp shining through the stubble of her hair as the moon bleaches the roof and the ruins gray.

Siri can see the Milky Way here, and it never ceases to move something in her, like it’s some symbol of her freedom--she couldn’t see it at the fort, or in the moving camps at night while they were marched place to place, or the towns they took as a contubernium, but she could see it from the front porch of her house growing up, or in Anja’s backyard on nights they would stay up drinking and laughing and waiting on a call from a birth, or after a marriage or holiday, or when they’d stay up quiet and somber on nights they waited for news from an accident, or someone sick, or someone in their last hours. She would look up at it every night on the road, try to count the stars until the exhaustion overwhelmed her and Lucy’s humming and mumbling bird-focused babytalk would put her to sleep.

“Hey, are you gonna come watch me?” Swan calls back over her shoulder.

Siri grunts, trots over, stays standing next to Swan as Swan takes aim at her first target.

“You see that speed limit sign down there?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m gonna put a bullet through the zero.”

Siri watches, silently, as Swan lines up the shot--one-count, two-count, _BANG_.

Siri jumps, freezes absolutely still, heart hammering in her ears-- _whunk_ , _whunk_ , _whunk_ \--in the dead silence that follows.

“Nailed it,” Swan says, voice quiet, and Siri finally tears her eyes away from the horizon to look at the sign. She can’t see from here if there is a bullet hole in the sign.

“I--I.” Siri starts, stops, takes a deep breath, tries to slow her heartbeat. “That startled me.”

“It’s awful quiet,” Swan agrees. “You alright?” She look up at Siri, eyebrows raised.

“I--don’t like guns.”

“We can do this in the daytime, when there’s a little more noise, if you want,” Swan offers, sets the butt of her gun on the roof and uses it to stand up. “Just thought it might help tonight. You wanna stay in my room? Or you think you can sleep in your own?”

“I’d like to see the quilt you’re sewing, if you don't mind.”

Swan grins.

“Sure! Maria told me last week that her quilt is on its last legs, I thought I would make her a new one. She told me once she really loves the colors of a sunset on a cloudy day, so I thought I would…”

Swan continues to talk, explains what she’s doing on the quilt, as Siri follows her back down to the armory, as she puts the gun and ammunition away, locks the armory, and heads back down to her bedroom. Siri settles on a low cot Swan digs out of a storeroom full of them--still talking about quilts, though now she’s moved on to the history of the quilts she’s made for the tribe--and slowly drifts until she's laying down, then dozing, then asleep, all while Swan continues to talk without asking for conversation.

When she wakes in the morning, Swan’s half-finished quilt is draped over her, and Swan is asleep under her own quilt. Someone is moving out in the hallway--probably Regina, by her gait and the time on the clock above the door.

She rolls out of bed, folds the quilt as squarely and as quietly as she can, and heads back up to her room.

***

“Hey, Regina,” Swan murmurs, slides into the seat next to Regina, who looks at her, grunts through her mouth full of waffle, and raises her eyebrows. “Me and Siri were talking last night. What if the Legion tracks her here because of that letter? Or if they follow some group of refugees? What do we have in place to defend ourselves?”

“We have the armory, and all of us can use guns. I don’t think we need much more of a plan than that,” Regina replies.

Swan leans in closer.

“Look, she came to me last night barely able to talk ‘cause she was scared she’d fucked us all over on accident. Thought I’d show her I was good with a gun, didn’t help much. Let’s make a plan, get her in on it, make it a whole thing. She doesn’t wanna use a gun so we can't give her one and tell her to shoot ‘em when they get here, so we gotta do something else.” Swan sits back. ‘So I think we oughta make a plan. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. Get everyone a job and a place to be if it happens.”

Regina takes a few introspective bites of her waffles, considers.

“I’ll bring it up with the others. This all your plan?”

“Yeah. Don’t think she'd appreciate knowing it either, I’ll tell the truth. Don’t think she's got as much to prove as Ravenshrike and Tech Vulture but I don’t think she wants us to think she's the weak link either.”

“Right,” Regina agrees. “It’s just a sensible course of action, with the people we have coming to join us, and with Ravenshrike and Siri having come here too.”

“Exactly,” Swan agrees. “Been a while since most of us held a gun for something other than scaring off wild dogs, would do us good, with more people coming back. Might need to start hunting regularly again, that sort of thing.”

“Of course. Some target practice wouldn’t go amiss.” Regina nods. “I’ll talk to everyone, see who’s willing to step up as a militia.”

“Glad that’s on the list. Think Siri wanted to set up stuff for refugees, too. Some cots in the gym, that sort of thing. Maybe some a week worth of box lunches or something, a menu? I dunno. Amelia seemed into it when I saw them in the hallway on my way up.”

Regina snorts and laughs, and Swan does too.

“No one I’d trust more to make box lunches for--what was it, a hundred people?”

“Something like that. God, can you imagine the dishes when we have to feed them fresh food. I call dibs on cart duty until we got folks back on the road again.”

“You can't do that,” Regina argues.

“You’re not my Raven, I can do whatever the hell I want,” Swan replies, and finishes her argument by shoving a quarter of a waffle in her mouth.

Regina stares for a moment, then rolls her eyes, sighs, and goes back to her own waffles.


	7. 401 (Cuba)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for Chapter 7: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-H7f2g6lQ)

Amelia chews on the end of her pencil, clutches her clipboard to her chest as she studies the cobwebbed room full of army surplus cots.

“How many d'you think we’ll need to set up? I might go get some of the others to help.”

“Seventy-five, at least, I would think. I don’t know how many people are in Amarillo, or how many of them will…” She trails off, swallows, looks around the room for a distraction. “...Make it,” she finishes.

“Seventy-five is a good start,” Amelia agrees, writes something on her clipboard. “We can get more beds set up as people come in, I’m sure some of them will be willing to help, and well enough to help.”

“I’ll definitely get after the others to help. That’s a lot of cots to move as just two people.”

“And we should probably pre-make some food, so that we don’t have to worry about feeding that many people on the first day.”

“First week. Seventy-five people, two and a half meals a day for seven days, that’s…” Amelia trails off as she does the math. “Hundred-fifty, and thirty-some, that's two hundred, say, for one day, and then for seven days…” she trails off again as she does the math. “That’s a lot.”

“Five days, only, then, maybe.”

There’s another pause as Amelia does more math.

“Three?” Amelia offers, looks sidelong at Siri, who grimaces at the stack of cots.

“Three,” Siri agrees, after her own moment of consideration. “Three days is enough to figure out a routine.”

“That’s five hundred forty lunches. That’s not so many. That’s about a quarter more than we’d make for people when we had the most clans.” Amelia nods, decisively. “It’ll keep the boys busy to hunt up that sort of food, but we can do it. Dogs and the deer have been getting out of control lately. Could use a little thinning out.” Amelia perks up, puts on a big grin. “Heard Poorwill complaining about being bored, I bet she’d love to get out and hunt. Mmm, with who though.” Amelia goes back to her clipboard.

“I’d say we should get the cots set up first.”

“Right, right.” Amelia nods along, sets her clipboard on a shelf to the left of the door. “I’ll go find anyone who isn’t doing anything. You get started counting out the cots.”

Siri nods, and Amelia trots off, yelling a variety of names--Poorwill, Swan, Cardinal, Sparrow, Maria, Ruth, Luisa, are all Siri gets before Amelia is up the stairs and her voice is warped by the stairwell, then muffled by the floor.

Siri starts counting.

It’s easier carrying these cots than she remembers this sort of hard labor--moving packages, crates, bodies, packs, shipments--being. They feel heavier, but she can move half a dozen out into the hall, into a neat pyramid, before she stops a moment to breathe.

Someone--multiple someones--come clattering down the stairs, and she leans around the doorframe to look. It’s Poorwill, Swan, Cardinal, and Amelia, all of them in comfortable clothing, shoes, and gloves.

“I’ve got the cavalry!” Amelia calls. She’s practically skipping.

“We need twelve stacks of six,” Siri calls back, points at the pyramid of cots. “And then three more.”

“Hey, Cardinal, d’you all still have that freight elevator?” Poorwill asks, elbows Cardinal in the arm, as they stop next to Siri’s lone pyramid. “‘Cause this is gonna be hell to carry up those stairs.”

“I dunno if I’d trust it,” Cardinal replies.

“We can always just stick the cots in it and walk up the stairs ourselves. Keep one person down here and one person up there. Three people up there, maybe. Two of us down here?” Poorwill nudges the cots with the toe of her boot. “I’ll stay down here.”

“Me too,” Siri agrees.

“I’ll go check the elevator even turns on,” Swan offers.

“It was twelve stacks of six?” Cardinal asks, squeezes past Siri.

“Yeah,” Siri agrees, and digs back into the shelves of cots, Amelia and Poorwill close behind as Swan heads down the hall and down its left branch.

They get two more full stacks of cots out in the hall, and four cots in a third, before Swan pokes her head around the corner of the hall.

“It does work!” she calls. “Still wouldn't ride in it!”

“Thank God we ain’t hauling these up stairs,” Poorwill grunts, adds two more cots to the last stack, completing it. 

“You weren't gonna haul ‘em anyway,” Cardinal says, and scoops up three cots, heads down the hallway.

“Well, I mean, yeah, okay,” Poorwill grumbles. “I mean, I might’ve, you don’t know,” she calls after Cardinal, picks up two cots of her own.

Siri laughs as, next to her, Amelia sighs and rolls her eyes.

***

It takes an hour and a half to move all the cots up to the gymnasium, and then another three hours--all hands on deck, even six or so of the men, and all of women not otherwise busy--for them to set up the cots into three even rows.

It’s Poorwill who starts singing first, in an easy, even tone,

“ _Go, sisters, and tell it to the world_  
_Go, sisters, and tell it to the world_  
_Go, sisters, and tell it to the world,_  
_Those fleeing find a home at last._

 _Through free grace in dying land_  
_Through free grace in dying land_  
_Through free grace in a dying land_  
_Those fleeing find a home at last_.”

There’s a verse of la-la-las that Siri joins under her breath as she struggles with a particularly stuck joint on a cot. One of the men moves to help her, wordlessly, holds down one end as she wrenches the frame around hard enough she stumbles.

“Who’s up first?” Poorwill asks, loud, and the la-la-las dissolve into mumbles.

“Call the Reavers first,” offers Maria, who sits down and bounces on a cot. “We’ve got the son of a Reaver here, right?”

“Yeah!” one of the men agrees. 

“Alright, Reavers first,” Poorwill agrees, and starts singing again.

“ _Go, Reavers, and tell it to the world,_  
_Go, Reavers, and tell it to the world,_  
_Go, Reavers and tell it to the world,_  
_Those fleeing find a home at last_.”

They go through a few others, most of which Siri doesn’t recognize--Bonebreaker, Walker, Cheyenne, Cimarron, Lake Kings, so many names Siri loses track and just sings along. It’s easy to fall into the rhythm of the song and the work--she only runs into two more cots that won’t open smoothly--and soon Poorwill brings the song to a close.

They all stand and look at each other.

“It’s lunches next, right?” Amelia asks, wipes her hands on each other. 

“I got chores I gotta go do, sorry,” Poorwill says, starts heading for the door at a fast walk.

“Yeah?” Amelia asks, moves to block the door. She’s smiling, eyebrows raised. “What chores are those? The ones you said you didn’t have?”

“Just remembered ‘em,” Poorwill replies, cagey, tries to walk around Amelia subtly. Amelia takes a couple steps back, follows Poorwill to block off the door.

“Oh, you know. I was gonna go, y’know--” Poorwill casts around desperately for a chore to do, looks at the other women, who watch her with growing, not-quite-malicious smiles. “Uh. I was gonna go sweep the basement-basement, for when we needed to, y’know, put food together for all those people. Gotta keep it clean, right?” Poorwill looks around at the other women, eyes wide, nodding encouragingly like she’s trying to get them to agree. None of them react except to smile a little more. “Better to get that done now instead of waiting until we have another fifty or sixty people underfoot. Check the lights and stuff too. All sorts of chores to do.”

“Oh, I imagine we can all help with those sorts of things, after all the lunches are made, right?’ Amelia looks around at the other women, who nod in agreement.

“Amelia, let me take half an hour, please,” Poorwill groans, finally gives up. “Just thirty minutes, I just gotta--” She grunts, a loud _ummph_ and waves her arm at the whole room, catching more men in the arc of her arm than women. “I mean, I didn’t wanna do lunches either but gimme half an hour and I’ll be back.”

“Alright, alright,” Amelia agrees, waves her hands a little in front of her chest. “Sorry,“ she adds, voice contrite.

“Yeah, it’s--yeah,” Poorwill agrees, beats a hasty retreat out of the room.

‘We should get blankets and things, too,” Siri says, interrupts the growing mumbles after Poorwill disappears back up the hallway. “Maybe a few of those milk crates, so people have a place to put their things.”

“Clothes and stuff, too, right?” asks Cardinal. “They’ll probably have even less than you did when you showed up.”

“Probably,” Siri agrees. “I don’t know where we’ll find enough clothes for everyone to have an extra few shirts, though.”

“We all have things we don’t wear anymore, and I’m sure we’ve got a couple crates full of coveralls and stuff somewhere,” Regina suggests. “We can go through things in the next few days. We should get started on food, though, since that will be…” Regina trails off. “Time-consuming.”

A giggle runs through the gathered women.

“Meet you all in the dining room!” Amelia chirps, and heads out the door.

***

There’s someone in the hallway.

The radio channel must have drifted, or gone down for some maintenance, because it’s just soft static, but there are footsteps out in the hall. Even, smooth, the _swick_ _swick_ _swick_ sound of bare feet on linoleum, the footsteps go down past her room, and then she can’t hear them anymore, they’re too far down the hall.

She gets out of bed, checks that her door is locked--Amelia had found her a deadbolt in a crate, and Poorwill had sat down on a stepstool with a screwdriver and drill and installed it in an afternoon--and when it is, she sinks down against the door, wills her pounding heart to be quieter, strains to hear the footsteps again.

They come back one hundred and thirty-three beats later, just go past her door. They go ten steps back down the hall, then turn around, and Siri can feel her stomach flip, involuntarily presses herself back harder against the wall as the steps get closer, then slow, then stop in front of her door.

Someone knocks, and she nearly pisses herself, scrambles across the floor and back onto the bed, grabs her sheets and clutches them white-knuckled, heart beating so loud and so fast she can’t pay attention to anything else for a long couple seconds.

“Siri?” comes a voice through the door, and they knock again. “‘S me.”

It takes a long three seconds--twelve beats of her heart--before she recognizes the voice. Poorwill.

She closes her eyes, tries to breathe evenly. Poorwill thinks she’s asleep. She can take a moment.

Poorwill doesn’t knock again, but she doesn’t move away either.

“Yeah?” Siri asks, after she lets herself take twenty seconds--she counts them _one_ nuka cola, _two_ nuka cola, _three_ nuka cola--to breathe.

“You drink?” Poorwill asks. ”Don’t smoke, but you willing to come drink with me? Can’t sleep.”

“I--give me a minute to get dressed,” Siri tells her. Pants. She should wear pants. “Whose alcohol?”

“Maria has a still set up in the basement-basement,” Poorwill says, and clinks two bottles together. “Told me I could take a couple bottles of moonshine.”

“How strong is it?” Siri asks. She grabs her newest pair of pants, pulls them on. They’re stiff from being washed, but they'll loosen up fast enough for this.

“Mm, I think she said her last batch with the same setup was 80-proof, so it’ll kick your ass if you don’t drink too often. Figured it’d be nice to go sit on a roof and get drunk.”

Siri scrambles for her boots, doesn’t bother with socks. It’s so humid out they don’t help anyway. 

“What’s it made from?” Siri asks. 

“Guava, I think.” The bottles clink again, and Siri unlocks the door. “She said they got a crate of ‘em a couple months back and it all went fermented a lot faster than they expected, so she just turned it into booze.” When Siri opens the door, Poorwill holds the bottle up. “It’s good shit though. Best I’ve ever had made out of guavas. If that’s what it is.” Poorwill checks the bottle again sloshes it some, squints. “Went and checked about a month ago and my favorite rooftop is still there and still solid, got my shotty to keep off the dogs, figured it’d be nice to get away from this damn building for a bit.” She bumps her hip out to one side to demonstrate the shotgun there.

“Where is it?” Siri asks. She steps out of her room, closes the door behind herself, and Poorwill immediately heads down the hall, toward the front door. She pauses next to it, still holding her bottles of liquor up, to slide her feet into a pair of tire-and-twine flipflops.

“About a mile south. Still in our territory, no worries there, we just don’t go there much ‘cause we already got everything here.” She heads out the door without looking over her shoulder, and Siri follows after.

“I can carry one of the bottles,” she offers, and Poorwill pauses long enough for Siri to draw level, and passes one over. Poorwill starts carving open her own bottle with a flattened bottlecap she fishes out of the breast pocket of her shirt, turns to her right and starts off down the street, flip-flops slapping on the cracked pavement.

“But hey, I’m already a glass of wine in, thank God for Singer Gull and her booze stash, and Swan told me you’ve been having a rough time at night, and _God_ but I need out of that building, so here we are.” Poorwill throws her arms out, above her head, movements loose and easy and comfortable. “Figured we could have a nice little outing, get smashed, wake up with wicked hangovers tomorrow, laugh it off.” Poorwill looks back over her shoulder, flashes Siri a rotten-toothed grin. “Ain’t got the responsibilities to keep us from doing it, right? No nine-to-five in the morning, no cooking for other folks, no laundry, just us and those comfy, comfy beds.” Poorwill sighs, takes a drag from her bottle.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten drunk,” Siri murmurs, speeds up her pace to walk next to Poorwill. The bottle is warm in her hand--this isn’t a nice cool beer or carefully-chilled wine, it’s moonshine from Maria’s basement still, that Poorwill’s been carrying around for who knows how long.

“Hey, no one around to take advantage.” Poorwill raises her bottle. “May all the bastards who tried be dead or dying.”

Siri lets that hang in the air, says nothing, but starts picking at the wax seal on her own bottle. Poorwill finishes her toast alone.

“Now, c’mon, you gotta see the view from this roof. Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen, and it’s only gotten prettier since I ain’t been here. Big ol’ park off to the south, and...”

***

Poorwill is laid out spreadeagle on her back, flip-flops abandoned, empty bottle also abandoned, and Siri lays next to her, shoeless, her bottle two-thirds empty.

“Do the boys ever make you nervous?” Poorwill asks, quiet. She doesn’t look at Siri.

“Mmmm,” Siri replies.

“Make me nervous sometimes,” Poorwill offers, still doesn't look. “You’d think after two centuries it’d get easier. Some of the old girls, may they rest in peace, got past their shit in the first couple decades. But not me!” She draws out the E in “me,” swings her legs up and wiggles her toes. She drops her feet back to the roof, snorts. “Anyway, you ain’t a bad person if that don’t ever happen. Might get you when you see Legion folks again. Gets all mixed up, even if they weren’t the ones’t scared you in the first place.” Poorwill scoots over enough to gently smack Siri’s hip with the back of her wrist. “So if you ever need to get outta that building and maybe scream a bit or cry yourself dry, you just tell me and we c’n come back out here and get fuckin’ drunk.” Poorwill laughs, and Siri laughs too.

“Thanks, Poorwill,” Siri says. “I appreciate it.”

“You ever need me to take one of ‘em out, just come tell me, right?” Poorwill rolls up onto her side, then sits up. She reaches over to pat Siri’s shoulder. Her eyes are a little wild, but she’s sincere, and when she moves her hand to Siri’s cheek--her hands are dry, smooth, clean--Siri’s seeing someone else, seeing Lucinda, feverish, delirious, her leg broken and the break impacted, her eyes wide, her voice insistent. _Have they hurt you? Only once, it’s alright. No it’s not, who did it, who hurt you. Some legionary. Tell me, he deserves to hurt._

She smiles at Poorwill, and swallows hard.

“Thank you,” she says, and gently removes Poorwill’s hand from her cheek. “I’m tired. We should go back, get at least a little sleep.”

“Mm, you’re right,” Poorwill agrees, sighs. “Home again home again jiggity jig and all that.” She pushes herself to her feet, reaches down to help Siri up too. 

The two of them head back to the building, Poorwill humming a tune to herself, Siri quietly contemplative.


	8. 108b (The Traveler)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 8: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ono7qk7VTRQ).

The six of them sit around the fire, evenly spaced--Lucinda, counting ammunition into her ammo pouch; Head Vulture checking over her crossbow mechanism, humming to herself; Singer with her notebook and a book open, taking notes as she reads; Mad Dog setting up twigs into a cone, positioned carefully between her feet; Burn and Drummer squatting and bent over a dice game, talking in low voices, giggling when the other says something; Runner turning over a single gold aureus, running her thumb back and forth over the bull in relief, across the words _PAX PER BELLVM_ \--but no one looks at each other.

“They only printed your coins for three months,” Runner says, finally, flips the coin over to prod at the face on the other side of the coin with her thumbnail. It’s a woman’s face, her hair pulled back into a twist, with a sharp jawline and a crown of laurel leaves and a straight nose. “Didn’t really catch on, as much as they tried to call you scion of Minerva.”

Mad Dog, Drummer, Burn, and Head Vulture don’t look up from what they’re doing, but Singer turns her head, looks at Runner first, and Lucinda next.

Lucinda glances up at Runner when she finishes filling her ammo pouch, but doesn’t hold her gaze.

“Surprised they stopped minting them that fast,” Runner continues, when Lucinda says nothing. “That woulda been, what, when Twist gave you a bloody nose and that old woman laughed at you for it?”

“Around then, yeah,” Lucinda agrees. “Surprised they ran them that long, even. Figured they started trying to get me alone by the time I stepped out of the weather station.”

“Had to take the time to turn the public opinion back to what it should be,” Runner says, turns the coin over again, eyes hooded.

“Makes sense,” Mad Dog agrees. She scoops up her twigs and tosses them on the fire. “Let the victory die down in their minds. Start thinking of women as animals again.”

“Can find a lot of the coins in Phoenix and Two Suns still. All over the place in Dog Town.” Runner flips the coin over, again. “Thought I might make this one into a necklace.”

“Got some tools,” Head Vulture offers, finally sets her crossbow aside, satisfied with its upkeep. “If you wanna drill a hole or something.”

“Might take you up on it,” Runner agrees. “Got the time around the campfire.”

“I’ll go get ‘em,” Head Vulture says, grunts as she stands. She dusts herself off and heads toward the arrangement of bedrolls, tarps, and backpacks.

“Minerva?” Singer says, quietly, leans forward to look at Runner across the firepit.

“Mmm-hmm,” Runner agrees. “What about her?”

“Didn’t realize they’d set anyone but Caesar up as a god,” Singer says.

“Well, she ain’t one now,” Runner says, shrugs. “Imagine they got all sorts of god-imposter effigies up. Got plenty of wanted posters.”

“Saw a couple in Cimarron,” Burn offers. 

“Were they any good?” Lucinda asks.

“Nope,” Burn replies, and Lucinda laughs a little.

“You know, Minerva had a bird, too,” Singer says, shuffles her things around, flips to an earlier page in her notebook. “It was an owl, I think.”

“What’s she goddess of?” Head Vulture calls. “Waving her arms around and predicting your doom?”

“War, wisdom, crafts, a whole bunch of things.” Singer bites her lip as she scans down the page. “Yeah, those are right.”

“That’s not an Owl,” Head Vulture says. “Those ain’t Owl shit. If she’s gonna have a bird, it’d be an eagle for war, raven for wisdom, magpie for crafts. Bad comparison.” Head Vulture comes back, carrying her tool roll. “Hey, Runner, catch,” she says, and Runner holds her hands up as Head Vulture hefts it across the fire toward her. Runner catches it, rolls it open, starts looking at what she has to work with.

“She wasn’t like you, with the birds as a thing,” Singer says. “She was really ancient, pre-pre-war, just had a bird because they thought she should have one when they drew her.”

“Still ain’t the right bird,” Head Vulture says, and settles down again.

Lucinda and Mad Dog both snort, and Drummer smiles.

***

“You think Bess can get ‘em back to Matamoros without too much trouble?” Mad Dog asks, glances back to Head Vulture. She’s ten feet ahead of Head Vulture, Singer at her side, following Runner, Drummer and Burn. Lucinda keeps to the very back of the group, doesn’t talk much.

“Yeah,” Head Vulture agrees. ”Gave her a few pointers ‘cause she never came this far west usually, but she’s smart and old and has some good trackers, they can figure out how to get where they need to go.” Head Vulture scratches the back of her head, sighs through her nose. “That Calidia seems like she coulda got ‘em all there just ‘cause she wanted it enough.”

“Yeah, Cal is like that.” Mad Dog throws her head back to laugh. “She’s good folk. Only talked to her a few times but I wouldn’t wanna be on her bad side.”

They walk in silence for a while longer. 

Head Vulture starts studying Mad Dog’s rifle, since it’s slung over her shoulder and there’s nothing else to look at besides the distant horizon and the intermittent yucca, thistles, the goldenrod and sunflowers. It’s good construction--looks like pre-war military supply, probably--and good condition--Mad Dog clearly takes care of it. Silencer, scope that used to belong to something else and was rigged to fit this, an extended magazine that looks home-modified. She can see something on the stock--it’s a nice carbon-fiber matte black, but there’s something carved into it that catches the light--and there’s writing there. She squints, focuses, see if she can parse it out one word at a time.

It takes her an hour, and catches herself humming the words into a nonsense song to keep track of them. Even then, it’s hard to remember sometimes, but she’s got nothing but time, and nothing better to stare at.

It doesn’t sound like something Mad Dog would say, but maybe Singer put it in her mind. Does sound like something from Singer. She tries to remember if she’s read it before, but comes up with nothing, but it sticks in her head, leaves her hand tight on her cane, her heart beating, fire rising up the back of her throat.

”-- _now a corpse, the work of this right hand_ \--”

“ _so stands the case_

***

It’s a long, long walk, and they spend most of it quiet among themselves, enough talking to correct their course, set up camp, send Lucinda and Runner and Mad Dog out to hunt. Head Vulture starts joining Drummer and Burn’s dice games, wins her share. Singer wanders the group, smiling, talking with Head Vulture and Mad Dog and Runner about anything that crosses her mind--she gets the talk about what birds go to who, a week toward Red Springs, and the whole party, Lucinda included, spend the next three days disputing it. Runner watches Lucinda’s birds closely for all three days they talk about them, watches the two ravens dart after each other, bicker over a beetle one moment and then work together to corner and eat a mouse the next. She watches Head Vulture’s vulture, too, as she wheels a mile above them, only comes down to preen Lucinda’s vulture in the evenings.

The climb in elevation is slow, and they all adjust as they walk--Head Vulture the slowest, but even she keeps up, leads, even, sometimes, as they get closer to Red Springs.

They switchback up the side of a mountain, to the top of a bluff, and settle into a scrape in the rocks, pressed shoulder to shoulder for the night. Runner, Drummer, and Burn eventually fall asleep in a tangle of arms and legs and snoring, Singer falls asleep with her head on Mad Dog’s stomach, with Mad Dog propped against the rock, and Lucinda and Head Vulture sit together, both still awake as the stars turn overhead.

“Did you ever find where Henny is?” Lucinda asks.

“We got split in Cimarron,” Head Vulture replies. “That’s all the more documentation that place had. Everyone from the twins on down out to Clayton, the rest of us up to Cimarron, and then I lost her when they shipped me off to Red Springs.” Head Vulture shifts, pulls her poncho tighter, doesn’t look at Lucinda. “Might’ve kept her there, coulda sent her anywhere, though. Lot of places to send one old woman who can’t complain.” Her voice judders on the last word.

“We’ll find her. If we don’t find anything in Red Springs, after all this is over, we can go to Flagstaff and find the records.”

“Cimarron would know, too,” Head Vulture agrees, wipes at her eyes with one hand. Her voice is even again, careful and slow. “And they won’t’ve taken her out. She’s too quiet. Too good with chemicals. Better to keep her to make, I dunno,” Head Vulture voice judders again, pitches up a bit. “Psycho and Hydra and chlorine. Shell be alive somewhere, working for them, the way all of us did.”

“She will be,” Lucinda agrees. “She’s smart, and she was good at stuff like that.”

“Hell, they kept me around after they broke my leg, they need folks like me’n Henny. Wouldna put up with me the way they did if they didn’t.” She nods her head, tips it back to look up at the stars. “She’s fine,” Head Vulture repeats. “She’s fine.”

Lucinda leans her head on head Vulture’s shoulder, and after a moment, Head Vulture returns the gesture, rests her cheek against the top of Lucinda’s head.

Somewhere down the mountain, a coyote laughs.

***

They crest a ridge, and Head Vulture gestures for the other women to get down, drops to the ground herself, crawls forward on her elbows.

“Mad Dog,” she stage whispers back over her shoulder. “Need your scope.”

Mad Dog pulls her gun off over her shoulder, rolls onto her back, scuffles until she can get the scope loose, and then belly-crawls up next to Head Vulture. Lucinda and Drummer look at each other.

“Got our city,” Head Vulture says, scope up to her eye. “See a good number of slaves, got some tents, got some guards, got a…” she trails off, squints as she moves the scope a little further from her eye. “Got a perimeter fence. See some electrical boxes on the poles. Sure as hell wasn’t here when I was through.”

“What’s the perimeter for?” Lucinda asks.

“Hell, when’s the last time they put you in a collar?” Runner asks, sour. “Must’ve learned from your example, Vulture.”

“Must’ve,” Head Vulture grunts in agreement, passes the scope back to Mad Dog. “So here we are with the collar problem.”

“There’ll be a key, or we can fake one, or we can take ‘em off one by one and start throwing,” Lucinda says. “Thought you said you could do that.”

“Yeah, and there's five hundred people with ‘em on down there. How many you think we can break out and toss before we get a hundred legionaries up our asses?” Head Vulture asks. “One, two, maybe three if it don’t make my hands flip out and shake.”

“So what’s the plan?” Drummer asks. “Find the key or fake the key?”

“Faking it ain’t gonna be easy. There’ll be a master key that’ll open all of ‘em, but each batch of ten has its own key. Wrong key’ll set it off too.” Head Vulture closes her eyes and drops it back on the rock, sighs.

“So we need to get the key,” Lucinda says.

“Which means getting past the perimeter, finding the key, and unlocking five hundred people in a damn short amount of time.” Burn scrambles forward to look over the ridge, and Mad Dog hands over the scope to her. “All without getting caught.”

“They’ll keep the key in the office building, that’s the tall brick one in the middle of town, or the quartermaster will have one. Could get both.”

“No clear shot to the depot,” Burn counters. I see four guards on the shortest route, and at least two on any others i can see fast.”

“I’ve still got a Stealth Boy,” Lucinda says. “Not a full charge, but enough to get in and get out.”

“I still got mine,” Runner agrees.

“Me too,” Burn says.

“Between the three of you, you gotta be able to get a key,” Drummer says.

“Split up, take three different routes in?” Lucinda suggests.

“Mm-hmm,” Runner agrees. “Hey, Vulture, what's the best way into that office?”

“Probably locked. Quartermaster’ll have a key for that too.” Head Vulture scoots down, away from the crest of the ridge, and sits up straight. “So you steal the quartermaster’s keyring and you get into that building. Get out, unlock as many collars as you can, cycle people out through…” Head Vulture trails off, rolls onto her stomach, moves to stand. “Through the latrine, get them gross as hell, and walk them down to the river like that. Walk a mile downstream, get as clean as you can, and then get the hell outta here.”

“Got it. You two ready?” Lucinda asks.

“You ain’t my boss anymore, so cut it out, but yeah,” Runner says, hauls herself up onto hands and knees. She shucks off her backpack ,starts digging, comes out with the Stealth Boy and a hunting knife. 

“Me too,” Burn agrees, slides back down and drops her own pack. She pulls out a heavy revolver, reloads it from an ammo box she leaves in her bag. She shoves the revolver in the back of her waistband for a moment, pulls out her Stealth Boy and straps it to her own wrist.

“Be careful,” Singer says, quiet, from where she still lays, a little separated from the rest of the group. The others look at her, and nod silently.

“Come around from behind the latrines. Looked like there weren’t so many guards there,” Head Vulture says. “We’ll bust you out if we can, but no guarantees.”

“See you in a few hours,” Lucinda agrees.

***

They split before they get to the town, and Lucinda sticks close to the smaller fenced-in area--there are about a dozen low, square buildings, and she can see the bunk beds through the open, unscreened windows. There are a few people out in the bare dirt yard between and around the buildings, but not more than twenty or twenty-five, from Lucinda's quick count. Most of them are women, most of them middle aged, most of them thin and tired, dead-eyed and heads lowered.

There’s one, though--sitting on the back side of her building, working on some bit of sewing--it looks like a shirt, or a tunic--and Lucinda sees her face, slows to a stop.

There’s a gap under the fence, maybe eight inches, but the chain-link is loose, and Lucinda rattles it, one sharp noise.

The woman looks up, straight at Lucinda, and squints for a half second. 

She tips her head, tries to get a look at Lucinda’s shimmering silhouette., then stands, comes closer. Lucinda studies her as she comes closer--same wide face, narrow eyes, square shoulders, gut that she had back then. More wrinkles, more freckles, more dark splotches on her face and arms. Her hair longer, grayer, pulled back into a tight bun.

She puts her hands on the fence, looks at Lucinda’s face.

“Who are you?” she asks, voice a harsh whisper--same as always.

“I’m here to help,” Lucinda says. “We’re gonna break you all out.”

“Familiar voice. Know you?” She narrows her eyes, turns her head side to side to try to get a better look. 

Lucinda reaches for her hand, laces their fingers together as best she can through the chain-link. Patches of the other woman’s hand disappear, and she watches it with disinterest.

“Ravenshrike, daughter of Adopted Magpie, Little Raven of the west walk. Head Vulture is with me too. She’s been looking for you. Said that was why she was coming. ‘I’m gonna go find my wife’ and all of that.”

“God,” Henny says, eyebrows drawn, looking up, past Lucinda. “Where?” she asks.

“Up on the ridge. We’re gonna get all of you out.” Lucinda squeezes Henny’s hand, and Henny nods.

“Ready. She okay?” She nods her head up toward the ridge.

“Worse for wear, but still kicking. She’ll be happy to see you.”

Henny nods, pulls away. She gestures Lucinda toward the office, nods, then gives her another wave, this one like she’s saying goodbye.

Lucinda runs toward the building--it’s a straight shot, no guards from nearby though there’s a pair on the doors.

Henny. _Henny_. Of all the people to find _here_. Head Vulture will be thrilled. Might be others out in the population, who knows. They have to be somewhere.

Ahead of her, one of the guards perks up, reaches for his machete, starts to say something when there’s a spurt of blood from his neck. For just a moment it illuminates part of a bare arm and a hunting knife, and then it disappears into the heat-shimmer of the stealth field. The other guard draws his machete and makes a wild swing. There’s a scuff of dirt behind the other guard’s corpse, and he misses. Lucinda sprints closer, but before she can get close enough to help--her own knife drawn from its thigh sheath--the other guard falls, gurgling, Runner’s knife jammed up to its hilt through the side of his neck, an inch and a half of its point sticking out the other side.

“Burn, you get inside, secure it,” Runner orders. There’s a grunt from close by, and the door swings open, points of contact flickering before becoming solid again.

Lucinda grabs the first guard under the armpits, hauls him away from his place in front of the door, and Runner follows close behind, dragging her own guard the same way. 

The two of them squat next to each other, elbows just touching, the static of the fields crackling between them.

There’s no noise from inside.

“How long do we wait?” Lucinda asks.

“Give her five minutes to scope and clear the building, then we move in.” Runner bumps her elbow into Lucinda’s harder. “Who’d you stop to talk to?”

“Old woman from my tribe. Head Vulture’s wife.”

“She gonna help?”

“I think she will. She was always big on doing the right thing too.”

There’s a scuffle in the dirt, and a heat-flicker in front of them, and then a ring of keys drops onto the ground in front of Lucinda.

“Building’s empty. One beds. Late enough in the evening they won’t be back tonight, I’d bet.”

“Pull the bodies inside,” Lucinda says, immediately goes to grab her corpse. Runner does too, and they both haul as fast as they can, and Burn follows after, closes the door behind them.

“Upstairs,” she says. “There’s the bed. Get them out of the first room.”

Burn turns off her Stealth Boy, locks the door. 

“See if you can find the right key,” Lucinda calls, turns off her own Stealth Boy, halfway up the stairs.

“On it,” Burn agree, squats with her back to the door, starts flipping through them. “Office, office, office, supply one, supply two, supply nine, supply master, barracks one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, eleven…” She keeps flipping through them one at a time, _clink_ , _clink_ , _clink_ , _clink_. _clink_. Lucinda and Runner--still invisible, little flickers of it across her corpse’s biceps and chest, where she has her hands through his armpits--haul the bodies into the upstairs room, heave them up onto the bed, piled awkwardly, and both take a turn to wipe their hands on the blanket. Runner deactivates her Stealth Boy, and her whole front is splattered in blood. She doesn't look at Lucinda.

The two of them file back down the stairs, and Runner leans on the desk, while Lucinda sits on the second step. Burn continues to flip through the keys.

“Unlabeled, unlabeled, unlabeled--here we go. Collars One. Collars Two. Collars Three, Four, Five...all the way up to twenty, and--” With a flourish she holds up a single steel key, an inch long, with symmetrical teeth. “Collar master.”

“And now we lay low until nightfall,” Lucinda says.

“Probably oughta move. They’ll search this place first.” Burn says, fiddles with the key. She looks to Runner.

“Just take the master collar key. They’ll notice the whole keyring missing when they find the two dead guards.”

Burn hums, twists and turns the keyring until she can work the single key off, then slides the key into her pocket, and replaces the keyring on the wall.

“Take something else, to throw them off what we might have wanted?” Lucinda suggests.

“You’re right,” Runner agrees, turns and slides across the desk, wiggles the first drawer open and starts flipping through papers. “Troop movements, shipping manifestos, slave ledgers. Shit the NCR might want.”

All three women start digging; Runner shoves an entire slave ledger into her waistband, Burn grabs random books off a shelf labelled SHIPPING MANIFESTS, Lucinda digs through a filing cabinet until she finds annotated maps, folds them and shoves as many into her pockets as she can carry.

Runner finishes first, claps the drawers shut one after the other.

“Let’s go,” she orders, and flips on her Stealth Boy again. Burn and Lucinda quickly follow, and all three of them head out the front door.

No one seems to have noticed the missing guards, and they close the door, scatter back out into the camp. Burn wedges herself behind a woodpile, low to the ground; Runner climbs a stack of crates onto a low roof, lays flat on her stomach behind its false second-floor façade; Lucinda tracks back to the smaller fenced-in area, winds through the buildings until she finds Henny again.

Henny is sewing, still, slowly hiding a hole in a shirt one stitch at a time. Lucinda scuffles the dirt next to her, doesn’t turn the Stealth Boy off.

Henny looks at her feet, first, then squints, calculates, looks up at her face.

“See you?” she says.

“Not out here,” Lucinda replies, squats next to her.

Henny sighs loudly, harshly, rolls her eyes. She hauls herself to her feet without another word, walks off toward the nearest building. Lucinda scrambles to follow her.

The building is empty, and Henny leads Lucinda to a barracks room. She sits down on a cot--it’s nicely made, with its single ragged blanket squared, a bundle of rags tied to make a pillow, a single sarsaparilla crate of personal belongings nearby--and gestures for Lucinda to sit down across from her. Lucinda feels visible, noticeable, since in this barren room Henny can still track her, and she hesitates.

“Ravenshrike,” Henny says.

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees, and sits down. She turns off her Stealth Boy, doesn’t look up at Henny.

They’re both silent for a long moment.

“Look like your mom,” Henny finally says.

“That’s what people keep telling me,” Lucinda agrees, glances up.

“Ravenshrike?” Henny asks.

“Did some shit,” Lucinda says, finally looks Henny in the eye. Henny’s face is blank, evaluating, searches Lucinda’s.

“What birds?”

“Two ravens and a vulture.”

Henny grunts, considers for a moment.

“Which Raven?” she asks. 

“The other Little Raven. I was the courier, the one in the Mojave, we met, and I--” Lucinda cuts herself off, looks away again.

“Vulture?”

“For all the others.”

Henny looks away, rubs at her chin, nods, considers for a moment. 

“Key?” she asks, holds her hand up next to her collar, makes like she’s turning a key.

“Burn has it, she’s--somewhere else. I don’t know where. Hiding. We took some things to throw them off our trail--” Lucinda goes to pull out the maps, and Henny wildly waves her hands, swipes like she’s wiping something away, closes her eyes and leans away. “Right, right, sorry. Burn has the key, we’ll get all of you out once it’s dark.

“Too many to get out,” Henny says. “Need different plan.”

“We don’t have the people to take out the legionaries here. Getting people out is the only way we can do it.”

“No.” Henny stands up, waves one finger at Lucinda, and turns to kneel, dig something out of her box of belongings. When she comes back up, she’s holding a scrap of cardboard, written on in something dark--maybe ink?--and she hands it to Lucinda. It’s a list of three things, with numbers next to them. 

“I don’t--what are these?” Lucinda rereads the list, wracks her brain to remember what this is. Saltpeter, sulfur, charcoal--obviously it’s supposed to burn, but what--

“Boom,” Henny says, pats Lucinda’s knee and she stands up. There’s something sharp, dangerous, wild in her eyes. “Need opportunity--” she points at her collar-- “and getaway.” She points at Lucinda. “Have boom, need chances.”

Lucinda looks at Henny, slowly hands her note back.

“What do you need us to do?” she asks.


	9. 30b (Prospect)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 9: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtYIABHIjgY).
> 
>  
> 
> **WARNINGS FOR GRAPHIC BLOOD, GORE, AND DEATH**

There's an uproar through the camp when the two guards are found, dead, and things are missing from the office. The slave barracks are searched, then the legionaries, and then the dogs are put to work.

Runner and Burn had time for both of them to flatten themselves out on the roof of a building. The dogs track them to the building, but the men who climb on top of the nearby buildings can't see them in the late-day heat-shimmer already there, and they give up shortly.

Lucinda hides in a crawlspace under an outbuilding. It smells musky and like animal shit, and looks like it was excavated by some animal, but the dogs go past her without sparing even a sniff in her direction.

It's late evening when she climbs out, the camp still murmuring, but quieter now. The slaves are rounded up into their barracks, and Lucinda slips inside after Henny, just before the door closes. She has the master key in her pocket, right next to her matchbox.

There's some shuffling outside, as the legionary gets the last few people inside, and the slaves in this barracks--about thirty-five of them, if the quick-count of fives is right--all start to get into their beds, though most of them look like they're faking sleeping. Henny stays up, sitting on the side of her bed, and scratches her fingernails across the textured plastic of her collar.

There’s a last call outside, and silence fills the room.

“Show,” Henny says, waves her hand toward the corner Lucinda has pressed herself into.

With a flick of a switch, the stealth field fades, and a few people whip around to look at Lucinda, who holds her hands up. Everyone in the room is wearing a collar.

“Getting out,” Henny says.

“I have the master key for the collars,” Lucinda continues. “We're gonna get everyone out.”

“How?” demands a man--elderly, with gnarled, arthritic-looking hands and a shock of white hair. 

“Unlock the collars, blow the town to bits, send you off somewhere else.”

“Matamoros,” Henny interjects, before anyone can demand a location.

“It’ll be safe. We’ve already sent one town full of people back there. We have another four people up in the hills to help get you out, and we have a route planned.” Lucinda peels herself off the wall, steps toward the middle of the room. No one else moves, just watches her. “Henny and me will take out the building full of the explosives, and everyone else just needs to get out.”

“There are more than five hundred of us,” the old man says. “Are you going to let everyone out with one key?” He crosses his arms, stands up straighter. “Because that won’t work. There’s just too many people, you can’t get everyone out in time.”

“It’s our one chance,” Lucinda says. “We’ll try to take out as many legionaries as we can, and everyone can help with whoever is left. There can't be that many left, after. I have two others with me who will help clean up the camp, things’ll work out.” Lucinda straightens up herself, looks the man in the eye. “Help us unlock collars, if you want. We'll need the help.”

The room is silent, and they look at each other, a Lucinda, at Henny. Most of them scowl, shift in place--they’re all old, a few rub at joints, more than one has to squint--but a small handful look at each other and nod.

“I’ll help,” one says, and old woman with half her face tattooed--the same patterns Calidia had, though this woman doesn’t sound like she’s smoked for decades. “Give me the key. I want out, and dammit if this is what it takes, this is what it takes.” She swings her legs out of bed, limps over to Lucinda, and holds out her hand. Lucinda gives her the key, and the woman unlocks her collar with a few seconds of fumbling for the keyhole and a quick twist of her wrist.

The collar comes loose, light blinking off, and she pulls it from her neck, tosses it onto a cot.

“Now who else?” she asks, and turns back to the rest of the room. “Henny, you first. Need you to set up the charges.”

The room moves all at once, gathers around, then sorts themselves out into an easy line. The first woman keeps ahold of the key, and after only a few collars she has it down pat--a _one nuka-cola_ , _two nuka-cola_ , up to five, before the collar goes loose and dark and its wearer casts it aside.

Most of them rub at their necks, touch their calluses and scars and raw patches with curious fingers. 

“Let the others out,” Henny orders the woman, beckons for Lucinda to follow.

There’s a handful of men around a bonfire, but they’re easy to avoid. The guards at the office are replaced too, after the bodies are removed from the upstairs, but even they stand and talk to each other, not paying enough attention.

Henny leads Lucinda around the back of the camp, past the latrines--empty--and toward an old Super-Duper Mart. The front door is barred over, but Henny leads them around to a service entrance that looks flat and featureless from the outside. Henny kneels down, scrapes the dirt off a strap that runs under it, and pulls the door open with the strap.

Lucinda closes the door after them, and they both stand still for a moment in the dusty, rotten-plaster dark, letting their eyes adjust.

Henny takes off, toward a back room, and Lucinda looks around the building as she follows. Most of it is empty--a large pile of shelves and displays along one wall, an open space with targets in the middle of the shopping area, ragged plastic strips covering the doorway to the backroom Henny leads her into.

There are crates stacked to the ceiling, all of them cleanly labeled with their context, and it doesn’t take long to see how many are labeled with AMMUNITION and a more specific variety, C4 - STABLE, GUNPOWDER, FERTILIZER.

“Is all of it explosive?” Lucinda asks. “All of this?”

“Mmhmm,” Henny agrees. She makes a beeline for a row of cabinets, but Lucinda stays standing in the doorway. The box of matches sits heavy in her pocket, and she clenches and unclenches her fists. She saw the Powder Gangers, in the Mojave, remembers her own rushed backroom lessons on dynamite and C4 and how to store ammunition.

“That’s--stupid,” Lucinda finally says, stares at the box closest to her. It’s a crate of C4. “Idiotic.”

Henny snorts and barks out one harsh laugh. She pulls something dark and vaguely gun-shaped out of the cabinet, sets it on the floor, then keeps digging until she pulls out a canvas satchel, then a second satchel. She heaves one toward Lucinda, though it falls short by about ten feet.

“They’re not smart. Feel invincible.” Small building, two pounds. Big building, like this, eight pounds. Building like office, four pounds. Tent, one dynamite.”

“Got it,” Lucinda agrees, scoops up the satchel. “I’ll take east, you take west?”

Henny nods, grabs her own satchel, yanks the nearest crate open.

“Blast caps in the last crate.”

“Mmmkay.”

She counts, fast, as she moves blocks of C4 into her satchel--one pound, two pounds, four pounds, ten pounds, twenty pounds, and she calls that good on the C4, breaks open a crate of dynamite nearby, counts a half dozen sticks into her satchel along with the bricks.

Henny comes over, taps Lucinda’s shoulder, presses the detonator into her hand.

“Place yours, find me at the shitters. Then we’ll blow these fuckers to kingdom come.” She claps Lucinda on the shoulder, goes down to the crate of blackpowder plugs and wiring.

Henny leaves first, disappears silently out into the maze of tents. Lucinda stays behind, plants two pounds of C4 around the stockpile of explosives, in half-pound blocks.

Henny is gone by the time Lucinda gets outside, and Lucinda shears off, heads for the office and a cluster of other adobe buildings.

It doesn’t take long to set up the C4--maybe fifteen minutes and she has the office and a half dozen other buildings.

***

“What’s happening?” the young woman demands, as the older woman unlocks her bomb collar.

“We’re escaping,” the older woman says, moves on to the next person.

“How did you get the key?” the younger woman asks, reaches for her toddler.

“Woman came from outside. Looked a little familiar, couldn’t place her though. She said she and two friends had gotten the key, threw the soldiers off their trail, and were gonna blow this place to kingdom come. We’re getting out.” She strips another collar off another slave, who breathes a heavy sigh of relief and scrambles out of the way so the next in line can get her collar undone. “So help me god, we’re getting out.”

“Who was she?” the younger woman asks. Could be anyone really. Could be anyone. No need to hope for someone she knows. No tribe, no contubernium, no NCR rangers. Not out here. It has to be a joke, has to be unrelated. No one could have found her out here, the Legion made sure when they sent her back out here.

“Dark hair, not too tall. Maybe thirty at the most. Looked tribal, had that sorta--” the older woman pulls away for a moment, stares into the distance, eyes slightly narrowed, eyebrows drawn together, scowls-- “look on her.” She glances at the younger woman. “Big knife on her leg.” She goes back to unlocking collars. “Knew Henny, looked like.”

Henny, Henny, where was Henny from. Southeast. Tribe. Not a lot of--men. Not a lot of men. 

“What was her name?” she asks. “Was it Lucia?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t ask. You think you know her?” The older woman looks over again, raises one eyebrow.

“I might. Did she have a big long braid with the sides shaved? Freckles? Was her nose kinda--” she gestures at her nose, tips her head up. 

“Had her hair cut short, but had the other two, yeah,” the older woman agrees.

“I’m betting she’s that courier,” the younger woman says, stands. Her daughter whines, tries to pull away.

“Helluva lot of couriers out there, you’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“The--the one from the Mojave. I think it’s her. I have to go find her.” She scoops up her toddler, who shrieks, and heads for the door.

“You don't have a collar, where d’you think you’re gonna go like that?” another woman--still in a collar--snaps. The younger woman stops short. “You get twenty steps from the front door and some boy in red’ll just send you right back in. Just wait until we’re all loose.”

“I can help her, if she’s--”

“No, you can't. Sit down,” the older woman snaps, turns around and points at the younger woman’s cot.

“She’s one of the people I was with before all of this.”

“The one who named you Birdy?” the still-collared woman asks.

“Yeah, her. I have to go see her again, especially if she needs help.”

“From the way you talk about her, don’t think she will,” the still-collared woman says, snorts, laughs a little. “Didn’t she kill a whole outpost of rangers on her own or something?”

“More than that,” Birdy says, soft. “But I want to go help.”

“Let me get the collars off, you can come with me to the next barracks,” the older woman says. “If it’s safe you can go find her from there.”

“Alright,” Birdy agrees, and scowls, holds her daughter closer.

***

Henny is squatting, back against the backside of the latrines, when Lucinda rounds the corner, also drops into a squat.

“All set?” Lucinda asks. Henny nods, closes her eyes, bites her lip. 

Lucinda flips open the plastic cover on the detonator, depresses the button, and gasps as the shockwave, the boom, the dust, the debris comes scattering past them, leaving her ears ringing, her vision swimming for just a moment, sends Henny over onto her hands and knees.

The two of them break from behind the latrine to see the last of the tall buildings--the office, a legionary barracks, the supermarkets--crumble down into the ground.

***

_Beep._

The first beep is a surprise, and everyone in the barracks stares at each others’ collars, eyes wide, mouths open for the long, long second.

_Beep._

The older woman turns the key as fast as she can, hands shaking as she throws the collar aside, desperately reaches for the next person.

_Beep._

The people at the back of the group start tearing at their necks, their collars, fingers digging, clawing, making no progress.

_Beep._

She misses the keyhole.

_Beep._

She misses the keyhole again.

_Beep._

“We’re not gonna--”

_Beep._

“--make it!” the still-collared woman says, waves her arms, tries to gesture the ones with collars still on over.

_Beep._

She gets the key in the hole.

_Beep._

Turns the key.

_Beep._

One less collar, scrambles for the next, hands grasping desperately.

_Beep._

“Get out!” the still-collared woman screams over the rising sobs and shrieks.

_Beep._

“Get out!”

_Beep._

She misses the keyhole.

_Beep._

She misses the keyhole.

_Beep._ _Beep._

“We’re a lost cause!”

_Beep._ _Beep._

Get the key in.

_Beep._ _Beep._

“The walls will--”

_Beep._ _Beep._

“--block more of the--”

_Beep._ _Beep._

Turn the key.

_Beep._ _Beep._

“--explosion!”

_Beep._ _Beep._

Fumble for another collar.

_Beep._ _Beep._

“Go!” Tears streaming down her face, shoving the woman with the key away, trying to get away.

_Beep._ _Beep._

“Too late!”

_Beep._ _Beep._

Fear.

_Beep._ _Beep._

Key in a collar. Can’t see which.

_Beep._ _Beep._

Turn the key.

_Beep._ _Beep._

Collar off.

_Beep._ _Beep._

“Get out!” Someone shoving her away, key flying from her hand to skitter across the floor.

_Beep._ _Beep._

“Get down!”

_**Boom** _

***

Henny cringes away from the explosion in half of the barracks, and Lucinda ducks away from it at the same time. There are no collapsing buildings here, though, just a loud, wet explosion, one second of absolute, dead silence, and then a scream, high, sharp, and desperate.

“What happened?” Lucinda asks, Henny, eyes wide. There are no people out in the streets. A few barracks doors are open, and quickly people begin to flood out of them.

Lucinda recognizes the woman who comes stumbling out of the explosion-wracked barracks first, clutching a toddler to her chest, trying to escape. She has blood on her, though no obvious injury, and she runs toward the nearest person--an old man Lucinda recognizes from Henny's barracks.

“Birdy!” she yells, sprints down the street to intercept her. Birdy doesn’t turn to look at her, and by the time Lucinda gets close enough to hear what she’s saying, Birdy is in tears, the old man holding her now-toddler, trying to hold Birdy up at the same time.

“They, they, they, the collars, they--we didn’t get all of them, they, they, they--” Her voice rises, chokes, strangles, and she falls into him, sobbing.

Lucinda peels off, doesn’t bother there anymore, sprints for the barracks.

A few people stagger to their feet, toward the door, as she stops in front of it. it’s dark, hazy, reeks of blood and flesh and shit and urine and spent C4 and gunpowder.

Lucinda steps out of the way of the people who can walk, goes in after they've left.

Most of the bodies are intact, for the most part--some ribcages blown open at the neck, a few arms missing--but their heads are gone. There are pieces, scattered around the building. She looks at it long enough to know what happened--collars in among the beds, whole and intact, shards of plastic embedded in the walls and floors, the fact there are still people alive despite the force of the explosion.

There are maybe a dozen curled against the far wall, or sprawled out on the floor. Most aren’t moving, or are doing little more than twitching, and Lucinda immediately goes to the closest, rolls her over onto her back. She stares at Lucinda, eyes wide, pupils uneven, mouth working, but no sound coming out.

Lucinda looks back to the door, sees one person standing there, not moving, mouth open, and then drops the woman, steps around her, hauls her up by the armpits, drags her toward the door.

Runner comes through the door next, shoulders past the man who’s still standing, staring, looking at the splatters of blood and unidentifiable chunks of organ and the dazed, concussed people still in the room. She grabs a man, drags him out, and Lucinda carries another woman out. Burn is next, follows suit, and then another woman, one Lucinda doesn’t know, who sets to work immediately.

“What caused it?” Lucinda asks Runner, when they both go for the same person, tries to look her in the eye. Runner doesn’t look at her.

“Radio control box came off its post in the shockwave.” Runner gets the man’s arm over her shoulders, helps him to his feet with an arm around his waist. “Hit the ground, broke dead, and set off the failsafe in the collars.” She takes three steps, and the man groans. “Couldn’t have seen it coming.”

Lucinda nods, says nothing.

Someone groans from partway across the room, and Lucinda turns toward them. There's one person Burn and the unknown woman are helping out, but she’s quiet, breathing shallowly, head hanging loose.

Someone on the edge of the half of the room full of bodies moves.

Lucinda run for her, drops onto one knee, tries to wipe the woman’s face, pull up her eyelids to check for a concussion, check her pulse to see how strong it is, but she’s slick with blood, covered in burns, and for a half-second, Lucinda feels her stomach lurch, when she sees how deep the burns are. She can see bone, across the woman’s cheeks, across her chest, skin and muscle both stripped from her hands and forearms, barely able to move. She pats at Lucinda’s cheek, tries to hold something, leave smears of blood instead.

“Come on,” Lucinda says. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

“My daughter,” she croaks. Her throat is intact--must have been out of a collar, then. “My daughter. My daughter,” she repeats, clutches at Lucinda more. “She tried to stop it. She tried to save--are they okay? Are they okay?”

“They’re okay,” Lucinda says. “They’re okay. They’re a little shaken up, but they’re okay.” This woman is dying. She’s lost too much blood, too much skin, too much muscle, there’s just not enough of her here. Better to give her the platitudes, not mention the missing eyes, the burns, the desperate clasping hands, the people not responding, the people barely able to stand. “They’re all safe, they’re all okay.”

“Good, good,” the woman says, lets her head fall back. “Good they’re free. Wish the rest could be too.”

“I’ll be right back,” Lucinda says, gently extricates herself from the woman’s grasp, heads for the door.

Henny meets her there.

“There’s someone alive, but she’s--there’s no way she can make it.”

Henny considers for a moment, then nods, waves Lucinda back into the building. She closes the door from the outside, and Lucinda goes back to the woman.

“I’m here,” she says. Who knows what Henny is doing, but--what's seeing one more death, after all this.

“Can’t feel anything,” the woman says.

“That’s okay,” Lucinda says, sits back down next to her. She doesn’t have anything to end this quietly. All she has is her bowie knife. Can’t do that, with however many people there are outside. Not with people who will see afterwards. Not with more people she’ll have to look in the eye.

“Hard to see,” she says.

“It’s dark in here,” Lucinda agrees, touches the woman’s hair. It’s coming loose from its bun, spooling out onto the floor in a steel-gray cloud. “Sun’s not all the way down yet. That’ll make it darker.”

“There’s no soldiers left?” the woman asks. 

“No soldiers,” Lucinda agrees. “They’re all gone.”

“Good.” Her shoulders go loose, and Lucinda tries to gather the woman’s hair up. Her hands are too bloody to do a good job of it. God, this’ll stain.

She knows, somewhere at the base of her skull, that she should have a different feeling about this.

“What’s your name?” Lucinda asks. “I didn’t get it earlier.”

“June,” she says, soft. “That was my mother’s name too.”

“Mine is--” she hesitates for a moment. It would be Ravenshrike, to a tribe member, but out here and at death’s door, that feels like the wrong name. “--Lucy. I’m Henny’s granddaughter.”

“Thank you,” June says. “For our way out.”

The door opens, sends one beam of light through the dust and gunpowder smoke. Lucinda looks up, sees Henny in the doorway. She slips inside, closes the door again, comes and kneels next to Lucinda and June. There are tears running down her face, but she makes no noise as she gently touches June’s shoulder, behind the burn. She’s holding a syringe.

“This will help with the pain,” she says, sinks the needle in, depresses the plunger. “Little Bird, do you know any songs?” After Henny asks, she crosses her arms over her chest, closes her eyes, tips her head back. Ater just a moment, she drops her hands, hides the syringe in her belt.

“Sang one for Woodpecker a few months ago,” Lucinda says, reaches for Henny’s hand. Henny makes a soft noise, takes Lucinda’s hand.

“Which?” she asks.

“It went, uh.” Lucinda pauses, takes a deep breath.

“ _Why should we start and fear to die?  
_What tim’rous worms we mortals are!”__

__

Henny joins in, voice quiet, rough, but as forceful as she can make it. 

“ _Death is the gate to endless joy_ ,  
_And yet we dread to enter there_. 

“ _The pains, the groans, the dying strife_ ,  
_Fright our approaching souls away_ ;  
_And we shrink back again to life_ ,  
_Fond of our prison and our clay_.” 

Lucinda falters, notices the slowing rise and fall of June’s chest. Henny keeps singing, a little louder, to compensate for Lucinda’s quiet. 

“ _Oh if your bird would come and meet_ ,  
_Your soul could stretch her wings in haste_ ,  
_Fly fearless through death’s iron gate_ ,  
_Nor feel the terrors as she passed_.” 

Henny gets more and more out of tune, but she powers through, and Lucinda rejoins her for the last verse. 

“ _That we can make a dying bed_  
_Feel soft as downy pillows are_ ;  
_While on our breast you lean your head_ ,  
_And breathe your life out sweetly there_.” 

June isn’t moving, and Henny shifts, presses two fingers to June’s neck, over her pulse, waits for a long, long thirty seconds before she pulls away and shakes her head, stands. 

“She’s gone. Need to group up.” 

Henny stands, turns toward the door, walks away without another word. 

Lucinda scrambles after her. 


	10. 32b (Distress)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 10: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zwhE_yh8sM).

The old man from Henny’s barracks--he introduced himself as Luis--has already taken over when Henny and Lucinda get outside. He sat Birdy down on the steps of one barracks, and she’s wrapped in a blanket, her daughter sittings next to her, playing with a ball of yarn someone gave her. Others are helping the injured--removing shrapnel, bandaging, elevating feet, bringing water and blankets. Runner is sitting with two middle-aged women, laughing as one talks, holds a rag to her forehead, and the other sits quietly, staring off into the distance, nursing a canteen of water.

Burn stands apart from the gathered crowd, looking down the street at the unopened barracks. All the buildings have their windows blown out, glass shattered out in the street.

Henny goes to talk to Luis, and Lucinda hesitates for a moment before approaching Burn, makes sure to step on some of the glass so it crunches under her boots.

“Runner and I are gonna help ‘em get the bodies buried. Go up and get the others, see if they can help.” Burn turns around to look at Lucinda. “Might wanna keep out of everyone’s way, too. Runner ain’t happy, neither’s anyone else.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Lucinda agrees, and nods in acknowledgement. “Keep an eye on Birdy for me?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. She’s shaken up, but so’s everyone. Runner’s kept an eye on her too.”

Lucinda nods, follows Burn’s eyes. She’s staring off into space, somewhere at the last barracks in the row. There’s someone halfway out of the door, just an arm, a shoulder, a hip. There’s some blood, but not the most blood.

“I’ll be back with everyone else,” Lucinda says, by way of excusing herself, and trots out of town, without looking back.

***

She meets Head Vulture, Mad Dog, Drummer, and Singer when they’re two thirds of the way down the path into town. Head Vulture is leading, Drummer behind her, one hand out to help if Head Vulture needs it, Singer behind Drummer, one hand on her holstered revolver, Mad Dog behind Singer, rifle slung away

“What the hell happened down there?” Head Vulture calls, tries to speed her pace to reach Lucinda faster.

“Blew their whole explosives stock to kingdom come!” Lucinda calls back, steps off the trail, into the weedy plants of the understory.

“How?” Head Vulture asks. 

“Got some help,” Lucinda replies. “Things didn’t go the way we expected them to, though. There’s…” She trails off, looks back down the trail. “There’s a lot of people dead that shouldn’t be,” she finishes.

Drummer snorts, and Lucinda shoots her a look.

“What happened?” Head Vulture asks, draws even with Lucinda, slows to a stop. 

“Shockwave knocked a radio receiver off its pole, broke it, and it set off the failsafes in the collars. Couldn’t have stopped it.”

“Sounds gnarly,” Mad Dog says, nothing but light-hearted break-the-tension in her voice, and Singer turns to shoot her a look. Mad Dog gives a tiny shrug.

“Runner and Burn are helping the people who didn’t--” Lucinda makes a gesture, something wobbly and horizontal near her chest, “--but there’s not enough people who are doing alright to do all the cleanup work.”

“How many are dead?” Singer asks.

“All the legionaries, and about--about half of the people who had collars.”

“Fuck,” Head Vulture murmurs, closes her eyes, tips her head back. She takes a deep breath, sighs it back out. “We oughta go help.” She starts back down the trail, and Drummer and Singer stick close behind her. 

Mad Dog hesitates, and she and Lucinda look at each other until the other three are far enough away they’re swallowed up by the trees and a bend in the path.

“There’s people down there that I put there,” Mad Dog says, adjusts her goggles so they sit less squarely on the top of her head. “Not sure they'll appreciate me being around.”

“Me too, and me either,” Lucinda agrees.

“Why don’t we go clear the rest of Red Springs. Make sure there aren’t any legionaries still breathing in all that rubble. Head back up to our little camp up there after, keep it held down, pack back up.”

“I’ll go tell Head Vulture,” Lucinda agrees, bolts down the path.

She comes back around the bend a minute later, beckons Mad Dog down, and the two of them head off down a different path.

***

Drummer goes ahead, and Burn comes out to meet her, gestures the other two into town. Henny is sitting next to Birdy; Luis standing nearby, talking to a few people who look at Birdy, or at any of the nearly two dozen people sitting against the barracks, or laying down, or leaning on each other; Runner stands in the doorway of one of the filled barracks with a group of three others--two women and a man--arms crossed, all four of them looking at each other.

“Luis will have a job,” Burn says, waves them after. “Still trying to decide on what funerals. Have a lot of people and places here, don’t wanna damn anyone’s soul.”

Drummer snorts.

“It’s real serious shit,” Burn lectures. “But yeah, we’re trying to decide between one-person graves, or a mass grave, or just...mass cremation.” She shrugs.

“Could do it our way and pull ‘em out, leave em for the birds,” Head Vulture suggests.

“You wanna watch all your friends and family get eaten by ravens and vultures and coyotes?” Burn asks over her shoulder, eyebrows raised. “You wanna suffer the stench of two hundred and seventy people left out to rot in the summer heat?”

“Alright, alright.” Head Vulture waves one hand, looks around the crowd. “I get it, I get it. Maybe ain’t a great way for--” She stops suddenly, mouth working but no sound coming out, one foot hovering for just a moment before she sets it down gently, doesn’t take another step.

Her eyes are locked on Henny, who’s leaning on Birdy’s shoulder, smiling gently, playing with Birdy’s daughter’s hair.

Head Vulture stares for a long, long, long moment, Burn and Drummer and Singer all looking at her, and then calls for Henny.

“Henny?” she says, not very loud. “Henny!” she says, louder, starts moving forward in the longest strides she can make.

Henny doesn’t look up immediately, pats Birdy’s shoulder, says something to her. She takes a moment to get herself straightened out before she stands, then arranges herself just a bit more after, all before she looks up toward Head Vulture.

Henny freezes solid, surprise etched into her face. It takes her a moment before she breaks too, doesn't quite run but certainly doesn’t walk, to meet Head Vulture.

“Looks like it’s just us three, then,” Burn says quietly, snorts, and then beckons Drummer and Singer over toward Luis.

Henny reaches out first, Head Vulture still halfway through her stride, wraps her arms across Head Vulture’s shoulders and pulls her into a hug. Neither of them speaks, but Head Vulture embraces Henny, too, presses her nose against Henny’s neck as Henny digs her chin into Head Vulture’s shoulder. They stand like that, wrapped in each other, silent, rocking gently, for a long minute.

When they finally pull apart, Henny takes Head Vulture’s face in her hands, looks her over, turns her first to one side, then the other, scowls. It breaks into a laugh almost immediately, as Head Vulture waggles her eyebrows, even through the tears streaming down her face.

“Still--still as handsome as I was back--back then?” Head Vulture asks, has to stop a couple times as her breath hitches and her words choke. She laughs, rocks gently on her heels.

Henny nods, laughs too, has to swallow hard as her own tears break, and roll down her cheeks.

“I--I was afraid we’d go all around and at the end of the day I’d just--just find some ledger with you listed in it. Kept me up a lot of nights, and now I--” Head Vulture breaks again, takes a moment to sob, and Henny laughs, pulls her in again. “Now I’ve got you again.” Head Vulture cries into Henny’s shoulder, her own shoulders shaking with it.

“Come sit down,” Henny says, guides Head Vulture over to the stairs, laughs a little as Head Vulture mumbles in protest. “Birdy, this is my wife. She’ll stay.”

Birdy looks up at Head Vulture, who’s grinning even as she wipes away her tears.

“My name’s Head Vulture,” she says, offers a hand to shake. Birdy cautiously takes it, and Head Vulture squeezes. “That’s my wife Henny, we been married for, how long is it now, babe?”

“Forty-nine years,” Henny replies.

“We been married for forty-nine years and I love her just as much as the day she kissed me for the first time.”

Birdy stares back at her, silent. Head Vulture continues to chatter.

“You know I walked out of this place four years ago? Goddamit, I wasn’t gonna sit here and take it anymore. Figured I’d rather die out there and free than here and busted up ‘cause some stick-up-his-ass fifteen year old motherfucker needed a power trip.”

Head Vulture keeps talking, watches Henny as she slowly drifts away to Luis, who’s conferring with Burn, Drummer, and Singer.

“One big grave is going to be best. Don’t know everyone’s religions, but I don’t think many are going to argue against a burial.”

“I want ours,” Henny says, crosses her arms, draws herself up. She and Luis are the same height, look each other in the eye. “We have to move them to the grave. Can take them then.”

Luis holds her gaze for a minute, then nods.

“I’ll talk to the others, see if anyone else wants to do their own funerals. Anyone who doesn’t want to doesn’t have to.” He turns away, toward the clusters of people doing their best to not look at the barracks.

“Thank you,” Henny says, and uncrosses her arms.

“How are you with a shovel?” Burn asks Singer.

“I’ve taken my turn digging ditches,” Singer replies, shrugs.

“Gonna be a damn big ditch,” Drummer says, snorts. Runner and Burn say nothing, but Runner turns, heads toward the knot of people Luis is talking to.

***

“You read much?” Mad Dog asks, hauls aside a chunk of masonry to kick at the drywall and two-by-fours underneath it.

“No,” Lucinda replies. “Read magazines, sometimes. I like those cheap two-cap novels you can get on trade routes, as long as they aren’t too brainy.”

“Singer’ll read me all sorts of stuff. She can’t get enough of it. Never been my thing.” Mad Dog kicks a rock, hard, sends it clattering across the ground until it _whomp_ s to a stop against a tent. 

“My mom taught me to read, but wasn’t like we did a whole lot of it. Never had a lot of use for it.”

“Same,” Mad Dog agrees, picks her rock up, hefts it in her hand for a moment before pulling her arm back and winging it, hard, at a still-standing corner of a stuccoed building. It bounces off, and a few flakes of stucco rattle to the ground. Someone crying over at the barracks fills the quiet.

“You gonna recommend me a book?” Lucinda asks, starts checking into the tents. Most of them are empty, or the men inside are bleeding and broken from the shockwave, or the dynamite, or some piece of flying rubble. None of them are moving. 

“Nah, was just thinking,” Mad Dog says. “There’s a--a play, I think? That Singer was reading me a while ago. Some twisted up bullshit love story from way before the war. She found a copy of it in a building once and she read it over’n’over’n’over. Read it out loud to me once and I don’t remember most of it but there was one part--” There’s a soft groan from underneath a pile of rubble, and Lucinda and Mad Dog both converge on it, haul it off the man, push it aside. The man underneath is crushed from the hips down, both his arms crushed too, and Mad Dog casts Lucinda a glance a split second before Lucinda pulls out her knife, squats down, dispatches the man with a quick slash across the throat. “But there was one part and it’s the only thing I remember and one of the main girls, she was talking to the man she wants to romance, about someone else who’d messed with her family, and she looks at the man and she says--”

“You sure she doesn’t talk for ten minutes first about the whole thing?” Lucinda asks.

“I mean, she’s talking, yeah, and shut up. But she says--” Mad Dog strikes a pose: narrows her eyes, snarls, paces back and forth a few steps, throws one arm out to point at Lucinda. “‘Oh, God, that I were a man. I would eat his heart in the marketplace!’” She throws her arm points out to the west when she says “his,” snarls deeper.

Lucinda watches her performance, impassive.

“Have a few men I wouldn’t mind doing that to,” she finally says, as Mad Dog slides back into her normal posture.

“Don’t we all,” Mad Dog agrees. “Thought you’d appreciate it.”

“Thanks,” Lucinda says, and snorts. She smiles, though, and Mad Dog grins back.

“Hey, can you show me how to do that?” Mad Dog points at the now-corpse. “I can stab someone in the gut easy enough, but I dunno how to get that sort of clean cut in a neck.”

“Yeah, sure, help me find another one,” Lucinda agrees, and the two of them trot off back into the ruins.

***

The majority of people don’t help dig--there are more than enough shovels Luis, Runner, and Henny bring out of a shed, but of the more than two hundred people milling around, only two barracks worth of people take up shovels, follow Luis and Henny to a big square of dirt just outside of the outer fence. Luis directs them into a long line, and they start digging as the darkness descends.

***

Runner tosses Lucinda a shovel when she and Mad Dog rejoin the larger group. Singer brings Mad Dog a shovel, and all four of them go back to work, shoulder to shoulder.

It’s slow, but the hole starts to grow. A few people have to stop, leave, faces blank, or tears running down their cheeks, or their shoulders shaking silently, or suddenly overcome with a sob.

People wander away as it gets darker, leave fewer and fewer of them digging in the pink-orange of the sodium light. Soon, there aren’t more than twenty of them--all of the out-of-towners, short Head Vulture, who’s moved around to watch them and call encouragement; and fourteen of the uncollared, including Henny and Luis.

“How deep does it need to be?” Singer asks, looks between Luis and Henny, who look at each other. 

“Four feet,” Lucinda says. “Minimum. Should be more like five, with that many people.” She heaves another shovelful of dirt out of the hole--it’s maybe a foot and a half deep, though its full length and width. 

“Lot of digging left,” says Mad Dog.

“Dig through the night,” a woman says. There are tear tracks through the dust on her face, but her eyes aren’t red, and without looking up, she hauls out another shovelful of dirt. “Oughta be enough Bitter Drink in the sheds to keep us going.”

“Got the coyote tobacco to go all night,” Lucinda agrees.

“You can go sleep if you want,” Henny says, looks around at the people still standing in the hole. “We have a ways to go, no matter what, we'll still be digging in the morning.”

“I’m staying,” the woman who suggested Bitter Drink says, hauls out another shovelful. “I can't do jack shit else for them, so I’ll do this.”

Next to her, most of the other people nod, and a few take small shovelfuls of dirt, look around. Lucinda nods too, jams her shovel down and takes out another shovelful of her own.

Slowly, everyone goes back to work. Head Vulture and Henny look at each other for a moment, and Head Vulture hauls herself off the ground, heads off to the first supply shed she can see.

***

The sun is breaking over the mountains, everything in their shadows a soft gray, just a faint pink line above the horizon, fading to deep deep blue in the west, when they finish the grave. Almost all the rest of the town has gone to sleep; there are a few people still out in the streets, a couple smoking, a couple talking to each other in quiet voices, more than one pair leaning on each other in silence. Birdy wanders out of the barracks in the middle of the night, carrying her baby, who fusses and whines until someone else takes her, gently bounces her back to sleep as Birdy dozes in the doorway.

One person wakes up yelling, but they’re quieted quickly.

Henny and Head Vulture doze off, shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the back of the building, Henny’s head on Head Vulture’s shoulder, Head Vulture’s cheek presses against the top of Henny’s head, sometime past midnight.

Runner, Drummer, and Burn take turns taking naps, sixty shovelfuls of dirt at a time.

Mad Dog powers through the night, one shovel after another, no words, no sound, no indication anyone else exists outside of a general attempt to not hit them with dirt, or a shovel, or an elbow. Singer watches her, but says nothing, and takes the Bitter Drink one of the others offers without a complaint, just a quiet “thank you” and a sour face when she drinks it in one long gulp.

The people from the barracks sing, sometime after most of the camp goes to bed--not loud, but not soft, steady enough it’s easy to fall into their rhythm. A few trickle away as it gets later and later, but a few more start to trickle back in the early hours of the morning.

Lucinda digs next to Mad Dog, and doesn’t speak either, keeps working on a plug of coyote tobacco she made out of a cigarette. She spits out into the dirt pile, not into the grave, and no one comments.

When they finally all crawl out of the hole, they all turn to look at it, and slowly people start to file out of the barracks to look at it, until the whole remaining contingent is gathered around it.

“What tribes want to claim their own?” Luis asks, looks around.

“Birds,” says a woman Lucinda doesn’t recognize, who had joined them in the early hours of the morning.

“Yeah,” Head Vulture agrees. Out in the crowd, a few more people Lucinda doesn’t recognize nod.

“Reavers,” says a man, who when Lucinda turns to look at him, does look a lot like Head Vulture and Henny. A few other people in the crowd nod with him.

“Were there any Tar Walkers?” Singer asks. 

“We were all lucky,” says another voice in the crowd.

“Roadwalkers?” Mad Dog asks, the first thing she’s said since dark fell.

“Two lost,” says a woman out in the crowd. 

“Who’s from Flatwater?” Runner asks.

“A few,” says a man.

Everyone falls silent then.

“Right,” says Luis. “We’d better move quickly. It won’t be a more pleasant job after the sun is up and the day starts to get hot.”

People murmur, nod, break for the barracks, slowly, in clusters. Lucinda drifts to Henny and Head Vulture, who already have a knot of people Lucinda only distantly recognizes around them. Head Vulture is smiling, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and Henny looks like she's comforting someone.

Head Vulture steps aside to let Lucinda into the circle, and Lucinda recognizes the woman Henny is comforting--Old Eagle, fourteen years older, lines around her eyes, skin covered in sunburn scars, comfortably into middle age, eagle tattoo on her chest faded and softened by the years. The rest of the women have the tattoos too--some on their shoulders, some on their chests, on their arms, one with it on her calf, a couple with it on their backs, where Lucinda can’t see it until they turn to look at the barracks.

“So who wants to be in charge of the funeral?” Head Vulture asks, leans on her cane.

“I'll do it,” says one of the women Lucinda doesn’t recognize--vulture tattoo above her heart, younger than Old Eagle, her whole head shaved down to stubble, her whole self long and thin and her cheeks hollow. “Most of them that didn’t make it were my clan.”

“How many?” Head Vulture asks, looks first to Shaved Vulture, her eyebrows raised.

“Seven,” says another woman--an eagle with her tattoo on her shoulder, in the same place that, for just a moment, Lucinda can see the other Little Raven’s tattoo. She has heavy-lidded eyes, is missing two fingers on her left hand, has a vicious scar up the same forearm, interrupted by deep talon puncture wounds. “One Owl, three Magpies, a Seagull-Pigeon Mockingbird, and two little girls without birds yet.”

“On their own?” Head Vulture asks. Scarred Eagle nods.

“Whose were they?” Head Vulture asks.

“A Little Eagle and an Adopted Magpie,” Scarred Eagle says. “Who’s this one?” she asks, tips her chin at Lucinda, keeps her eyes on Head Vulture. 

“Born to an Adopted Magpie, on the west walk, first named Raven, then named Shrike, then Ravenshrike, grew up under the Legion, and now I’m...” Lucinda trails off, looks at the women around her. All of them are watching her, including Henny, whose face has gone from quiet regard to something intense, sharp, the same look she had in her eye when she handed Lucinda the detonator the evening before. “Now I’m trying to fix my mistakes.”

“Ravenshrike,” Shaved Vulture says. “Never thought I’d see a Shrike out of the babies born to us, but I guess these are…” she trails off, takes a deep breath, sighs. She looks at Lucinda with sad eyes. “Dark times,” she finishes. She’s starting to look familiar, as Lucinda looks at her--she has hair, in her memories, hair and glasses and a bandolier, a squint, a booming laugh that rivaled Head Vulture’s for sheer volume. “So I guess we make do with who we have. The adults should have their tattoos intact, and there aren’t too many kids that didn’t get out. They shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“I can do it,” Lucinda interjects, as they all start to move. “I can--I can find them. If you don't want to go in.

“Why?” Scarred Eagle immediately demands. “Dunno what you did to get named Shrike, but if you think you can work off some debt we don’t know about by--”

“It doesn't bother me,” Lucinda interjects again. “I don’t--the dead don’t bother me. Let me do it. I’ll bring them to you.”

“I’ll help,” Shaved Vulture says, crosses her arms, sets her jaw. “Deserve my help.”

“Mine too,” says another woman--Magpie, four vertical lines tattooed on her cheek, cheekbone to jawline.

“And ours,” Head Vulture says, after sharing a quick look and a slight nod with Henny.

Lucinda looks around at them--they’re all so much older than her, and it’s easy to feel like she’s eleven years old again, chasing Fledgling and the boys down the hall shrieking, someone telling her off; sitting in the corner of the dining room, playing with some handmade doll, while forty old women bickered and talked and laughed; someone inviting her over to show her how to do some new skill--and then looks down at the ground.

“How many are left at Matamoros?” Scarred Eagle asks, at Head Vulture.

“‘Bout two dozen, and about half as many boys. AIn’t lost many there, at least.” 

“That’s good,” Scarred Eagle agrees, and Head Vulture finally turns away, leads everyone toward the barracks.

There are a lot of people milling around, no one quite ready to be the one to open the doors. It reeks, Lucinda can smell it out in the street, even fifty feet away, can hear the buzz of flies when she's twenty feet away, watches some of the others falter as she approaches a door.

“There should be two in here,” Scarred Eagle says, ten feet back. “Mockingbird and a Magpie.”

Lucinda nods again, no words, and opens the door.

She puts them on a blanket, when she finds them, huddled together, wipes her hands on the rough wood of the walls to clean off the worst of the blood and gore, pulls the two of them back out the door.

Scarred Eagle sobs, once, something sharp, quick, deep, and Henny wraps an arm across her shoulders.

Old Eagle stands apart from the rest of them, watches Lucinda with sad eyes.

Down the street, other people do the same, go into the barracks with their shirts over their mouths and noses, and some come back out with bodies on blankets, or on a cot, or come out retching and gasping, empty handed.

Shaved Vulture pulls the blankets with the bodies Lucinda brings out past the barracks, past the mass grave that already has a few bodies in it, set neatly together, shoulder to shoulder, up a large hill.

Everyone else follows, a little while later, some pulling a blanket on their own--Lucinda, Old Eagle--and some working together--Scarred Eagle, Tattooed Magpie; a pair with matching owl tattoos.

They all stand shoulder to shoulder, when the bodies are together in a row--Lucinda, Head Vulture, Henny, old Eagle, Scarred Eagle, Shaved Vulture, Tattooed Magpie, the rest, on down the line.

“What song?” Tattooed Magpie asks, folds her hands in front of herself, then behind herself, shuffles a little, avoids looking at the bodies and the flies.

There’s quiet between all of them for a long minute.

“I have one,” Lucinda offers. “It goes, uh--

“ _So fades the lovely blooming flower_ ,  
 _Frail, smiling solace of an hour_ ;”

She pauses, and the other women take their own deep breaths, join in. Head Vulture sings low, the Eagles somewhere in the middle, Tattooed Magpie and Shaved Vulture a little higher than them, and Lucinda the highest part. The others sign where they're comfortable too, until it’s a full-voiced rendition.

“ _So soon our transient comforts fly_ ,  
 _And pleasure only blooms to die_.

“ _Is there no kind, no healing art_ ,  
 _To soothe the anguish of the heart?_  
 _Spirit of grace, be ever nigh_ ;  
 _Thy comforts are not made to die_.”

Shaved Vulture is the first one who breaks, her voice faltering and tears running down her cheeks. She turns away from the bodies, scrubs at her face as one of the Owls wraps her arms around her shoulders, rocks her gently. The Owls break next, then Old Eagle, and Scarred Eagle, and Henny. Head Vulture pulls Henny against her side, but doesn’t cry herself.

“ _Let gentle patience smile on pain_ ,  
 _Till dying hope revives again_ ,  
 _Hope wipes the tear from sorrow’s eye_ ,  
 _And faith points upward to the sky_.”

The song hangs heavy in the air, and they all stand, silent, watching people move around down below, bring their own dead to the grave.

Above, Head Vulture’s vulture and Lucinda’s ravens begin to circle lower.

***

“Little Bird.” Old Eagle stops fifteen feet away, shuffles a little, can’t look Lucinda in the eye as Lucinda looks at her.

“Yeah?” Lucinda asks.

“What--what happened to my daughter?” Old Eagle closes her eyes, and Lucinda can see her take a deep breath.

“I don’t know,” Lucinda says, looks away. She can hear Old Eagle exhale. “We were sent to Clayton, and then we were split up. They sent me and Twin Seagull up to Dog Town, but I don’t know where Little Seagull and Fledgling ended up.”

“Okay,” Old Eagle says, voice catching. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Head Vulture and I are gonna keep heading west, though,” Lucinda interjects, as Old Eagle starts to turn away. “I’ll--we can look for her.”

“Thank--thank you.” Old Eagle says. “Send her home to us, if you can?”

“Of course,” Lucinda agrees. “Just--she might be like me.”

“What do you mean?” Old Eagle asks, turns back around.

“They married me off to some man who bred dogs for the legionaries. She could’ve been married off too. Might not--want to leave.”

“Just send her back if you can,” Old Eagle says, voice soft, tears starting. “If not, just--send someone with news. Maybe I can go out and find her.” She snorts, tries to smile. “Go meet my son-in-law.”

Lucinda smiles back, and Old Eagle nods, turns away, heads back toward where Head Vulture and Henny are sitting on a picnic table bench, talking in low voices.


	11. 81t (Beach Spring)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 22: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6owUpjXHgG8).
> 
> warning for some gross medical stuff

“Siri?”

There’s a man in the doorway, and Siri jumps when he speaks, leaves a streak of pencil across her notes.

“Sorry!” she laughs, tries to shuffle her things away, get out of her chair, and approach at the same time. “Is someone hurt?”

“No, no one’s hurt,” he says, waves for Siri to sit back down. “But, uh, how do you feel about dogs?”

Siri slowly sinks back down into her chair, squints as she thinks.

“They’re--alright. I’ve known some good dogs, and I’ve known some dogs I wouldn’t leave alone with a sleeping toddler.”

“One of the other guys, he breeds hunting dogs, mostly, because that’s what we need more of usually, and he said he’s got one dog, really likes people. She’s a real doll, gentle as I’ve ever seen, but she’s no good at hunting. Just doesn’t have it in her.” The man--Siri is desperately searching her memories for his name, she’s certain Swan had introduced them to each other at some point--shuffles into the room, hands behind his back. “But Poorwill and one of the other really old women were telling us about pre-war dogs, they’d help you if you were blind, or couldn’t hear, or sometimes for people who had--pardon me.” He coughs delicately, studies the room partition instead of looking at Siri. “Sometimes, for people who were nervous, or who had come back from the war, or had people attack them, they’d get a dog and the dog would help.”

“Help how?” Siri asks.

“I dunno, I’d have to ask Poorwill again. But this dog is still pretty young, she’s only about a year old. Real sharp, though, she can hear people coming from half a mile away, I swear. Always wants to be with whoever is out training the dogs. Really loves people. If she doesn’t work, it’s no trouble, but I thought I oughta come ask you if you wanted her before we traded her away.” The man shrugs. “I can bring her in later, or you can come out and see her, if you want?”

Siri thinks for just a moment.

“Can I come out and see her now?”

“Sure!” The man beams like she’s just given him a gift. “She really is such a sweetheart, I didn’t wanna trade her away if we could find some use for her around here.”

Siri follows the man--Matthew? Mateo? Mario? why can't she remember--out of the building, past the chicken coop, the rabbit hutch, out past the wall, to a near-empty lot across the street, out to the half-shed chainlink-fronted kennel. The lot is mostly dirt, with a few patches of dandelion and puncture vine and sand burrs scattered at odd intervals. There’s a stock tank and windmill next to the half-shed. There’s one man out in the lot, a dog running fast, low-to-the-ground circles around him, chasing a lure the man snaps around at sharp angles.

“She’s right in here,” the man says, leads Siri into the shaded part of the shed, opens a loosely-latches cubicle to let out a medium-sized dog.

She’s half the size of the Legion’s vicious mongrels, with short fur, a blocky head, upright ears with just the tips bent down. She’s brindled all over, with white socks, and her entire rear end waggles when she wags her tail, looks between Siri and the man.

“Hi you big baby, how are you?” the man asks, squats down and opens his arms. The dog charges him, pulls up short to press herself against him, lick his face, as she scrubs the heels of his hands across her sides and she waggles more in his embrace. “Say hi to Siri.” She points at Siri, and the dog’s attention immediately snaps to Siri, and Siri reaches down to pat the dog, who leans against her side, closes her eyes, and lets her mouth hang open as Siri scratches behind her ears.

“Hi, dog,” she says, softly, lets her voice rise. The dog leans into her a little harder.

“She’s yours if you want her,” the man says.

“I’ll...try it,” Siri agrees. “She’s friendly, if nothing else. She’ll be good company.”

“Do you want a collar for her? We have a couple nice ones, good, sturdy leather, most of them are from someone's coat after she died. Don’t wanna just leave it out to rot, usually.” The man scrambles to his feet, goes to a filing cabinet, yanks open a drawer and starts digging until he pulls out a wide leather collar with what looks like a pre-war belt buckle on it. “Here, this’ll keep people from shooting at her if she gets out. Uncollared dogs, who knows what’ll happen. Collar means they belong to someone.”

He says it and she knows he doesn’t mean anything by it, but she stops scratching behind the dog’s ears, her hand going to her throat involuntarily. The man doesn’t notice, and holds out the leather collar.

Siri forces herself to take it.

It’s cool, stiff, shiny from use, and heavy in her hand.

She kneels down, clips it around the dog’s neck. The dog just pants at her, licks Siri’s hand when it strays too close to her mouth.

“Might train her to notice people,” the man suggests, as Siri stands back up. “Seen you jump when you don’t hear us coming, might be a good thing to train her.”

“How?” Siri asks, goes back to petting the dog.

“I’ll have someone walk down the hall, try to get her to growl when she hears them. You tell her you hear them, give her a chunk of liver.”

“We can try it,” Siri agrees. “I think that'll be good.”

“Great!” the man says, grinning. “I hope she does a good job.”

Siri smiles back at him, squats down to pet the dog a little more.

***

It’s late evening, and a few of the older folks already retired for the night, but a handful are out in front of the building in rickety deck chairs, a few smoking, a few drinking, most of them doing nothing in particular. Amelia has a book, Swan has a torn blanket and a needle and thread, Siri is petting her dog, slowly, evenly, listening to the back-and-forth of the conversation Regina and Swan are holding about preferred stitching patterns.

Someone comes trotting out from between the buildings a block down--not tall enough to be one of the men, and it takes Siri just a moment to recognize her clothing, but as soon as she does, she’s up and moving, back in the building, dog on her heels, Poorwill yelling after her.

Down the hall, duck into her room, grab her cracked leather case, jump over the dog in the doorway, turn into the clinic room, grab the three bundles she keeps on a table just inside the door, just for this.

Back out, swerve around the dog who is happily loping after her, duck into the kitchen and grab a jug of water and three foil pouches of potato chips out of Swan’s shoebox stash, shoves the chips in the case and hefts the jug under her arm.

“The hell is going on?” Poorwill asks, standing in the outside doorway, eyebrows drawn together. “You took off like you saw a goddamn deathclaw and we look up and there’s just some poor sap in a shirt with a big red X on it.”

“She’s Legion, or she was.” Siri replies, adjusts how she’s carrying her things. “That’s what the big red X is. Come on. She’s probably not alone, get everyone moving.”

“Oh, shit.” Poorwill leans back, calls to the others, who are all up and moving, “Hey, we got one incoming!” She ducks back into the building, holds the door open for Siri as Siri heads outside.

Regina and Amelia are standing, Swan has her sewing set aside, and the others are in various states of movement--some headed toward the building, some out toward the road.

The woman--because she’s visible now, discernible, a real person--has light hair, walks like she's been here before, watches the women in front of the building.

“Hey!” she calls. “My name is Bess! I’m a Magpie, I joined you all decades ago!”

Regina looks at the others, all of them squinting at each other, nodding.

“We had a Bess who was a Magpie,” Amelia agrees, and that seems to do it. Bess the Magpie stops in the gate, watches them. Siri starts going toward her.

“Are there others with you?” Siri calls. She can feel a little water leaking from the jug, dribbling down her arm and splatting in the dirt.

“There are. About an hour away. We’re all spread out, not everyone could get this far.”

“Are you low on water?” Siri asks.

“Water, food, some twisted ankles, a broken arm, someone got bit by a nightstalker yesterday and she’s been going in and out of making sense ever since, had some scorpion stings and we had to beat off a cazador a week ago.” Bess the Magpie reaches out for the water jug as Siri draws closer, and Siri hands it over without protest.

“How are you? Do you have any injuries?” Siri asks. 

“Just tired and hungry, little sore, knees hurt. Nothing acute.” She chugs water, gasps when she finally has to stop to breathe.

Siri can hear people coming up behind her.

“How many people are with you? How many of what sort of injuries?” Siri asks, drops to one knee to check through her case. Antivenom, good, she has enough doses for ten people here; two splints; enough painkillers to choke a deathclaw; healing powder and poultices for the minor things.

“Only about fifty made it, couldn’t give you an exact number.” Bess the Magpie gasps again as she finishes another long drink. She wobbles a little on her feet. “One person got bit by the nightstalker, got a couple with the shits, five or six twisted ankles, lot of scrapes and bruises, good handful of small bug stings. That nightstalker is really the big thing. That girl ain’t gonna last another two days without help.” Her eyes are wide, brows furrowed, and she looks between Siri and whoever is behind her.

“Where are they, and how far away is she? Can we reach them tonight?” Poorwill asks, puts one hand on Siri’s shoulder blade. 

“We have one group, about forty people, about an hour away, I told them I’d go ahead and see if I could get food and water and help for the minor stuff, but that girl’s about five hours back. She was too delirious to carry her any farther.”

“Alright.” Siri nods, closes her eyes. “Alright. We just need to get everyone here, so that’s how much water?”

“Leave it to Amelia,” Poorwill says, moves her hand up to Siri’s shoulder and squeezes. “Where’s the nightstalker victim?”

“She’s back in Brownville. We set her and five others up in a big old government building. They should be safe from anything outside, but we don’t have a lot of time.” Bess the Magpie tries to hand the jug to Poorwill, who waves it off.

“Am I gonna need a gun?” Poorwill asks.

“Not a bad idea,” Bess says.

“Got it. Siri, you get your stuff together, we’re gonna go save this girl.”

“Alright,” Siri agrees. “We should take the water and food for everyone else, too, at least.”

“Roger!” Poorwill turns around and yells, and Roger--Siri had his name wrong the whole time, it was Roger--leaps up, comes running over. “We need a dog that can pull. That’ll be, what, shit.” Poorwill chews her lip for a moment, eyes intense. “Gimme seventy-five pounds or more.”

“Is a team alright?” Roger asks.

“A team is fine. Need ‘em in the next fifteen minutes though.”

“Got it,” he agrees, and jogs around Bess the Magpie, who he nods at, and toward the dog lot.

“Bess, you get inside and take it easy. You look like hell.”

“Thanks,” Bess the Magpie says, grimaces. “I’ll get Amelia and whoever else I can to get the closer group. You two just focus on the farther away ones.”

“We’ll take care of it. You go lay down.” Poorwill nods.

Siri stands, and Bess the Magpie is shuffled away by Regina

“It’s gonna be a long walk,” Poorwill says it Siri. “You ready?”

“Let’s load the wagon,” Siri agrees. “This is what I’m here to do.”

***

Poorwill navigates unfailingly, even in the disappearing light, leads them down streets they can get down easily with the pair of dogs and their six gallons of water and twenty boxed lunches and half dozen neatly-folded blankets. Siri follows behind, pack weighed down with medical supplies--five doses of antivenom, though she should only need one or two; five braces; a long roll of bandages; two bottles of rag-wrapped grain alcohol; her cracked leather case with surgical instruments in it.

Poorwill hums, the same song over and over and over, until Siri is humming along too, and falls into step with the tune. Next to her, her dog trots along, occasionally stopping to sniff at a piece of rubble or chase a rat into its hole.

It’s a long walk, and after they cross some street Siri doesn’t think to notice the name of, Poorwill pulls out her shotgun.

“Not our territory anymore,” she calls back over her shoulder, and Siri just nods. “Shouldn’t get any trouble, not this close to the edge, and not with someone dying from a nightstalker, but who knows. Been a long time since anybody talked to these folks about keeping the roads open.”

“They’ve been clear so far,” Siri says.

“They probably will be, but.” Poorwill waves her gun in the air, her index finger sticking out, well away from the trigger. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Right,” Siri agrees, and they both go quiet again.

***

Poorwill slows to a stop in front of a building--maybe it was a courthouse, with big pillars and wide, low steps up to its barricaded front doors. Poorwill goes up first, and Siri looks for a ramp to get the dogs and their cart up after her.

It takes a minute to find it, clear some of the bigger rubble off it, follows the dogs up, and Poorwill is standing in the door, talking to someone. When Siri makes it up, there’s a woman in the doorway--half her face tattooed, hair dark but going gray, comfortably middle-aged--and she wordlessly waves Siri into the dark building.

There’s a single spill of flickering light from a back room, and when they round the corner, stop in the doorway, Siri sees it’s a single, burnt-low candle, next to a woman on a blanket, sweating, her leg gone gone red and swollen, puncture wounds scabbed over, pus obvious. The rest of the group is also in the room, huddled together, faces heavily shadowed. They all watch her, some with wide eyes, some of them clearly too tired to care.

She kneels down, begins to work. Antivenom first--one shot in her leg, one shot in her opposite shoulder. That’s easy. That’s just waiting.

“Has she drunk anything today?” Siri asks.

“No,” says the tattooed woman. “Haven’t had a lot to give her.”

“We brought water and food. Poorwill has it out there. You can all take as much as you want, we can take you back as soon as you’re ready to leave.” God, that’s a lot of pus. Does she have enough rags to bleed it here? Maybe. Maybe not with this whole audience. A few people get up, leave, but only after they look at the tattooed woman, who waves for them to go.

“What are you doing?” the tattooed woman asks, squats down next to Siri. “Show me.”

“I gave her two injections of antivenom. That’ll bind to the chemical in the venom, stop it from causing anymore damage. What damage she has, she has, and we have to deal with that later.” Siri points as she goes--first at the leg injection, then the shoulder injection, the line of swelling and infection up the woman’s leg. “I was considering if it was worth bleeding the pus from her leg here--” She points at the abscess. “--or waiting until we were back at Matamoros and in cleaner conditions. I have alcohol to clean things here, but...” she trails off.

“But you’re doing this on the ground in some dusty as hell backroom. Yeah,” the tattooed woman agrees. “How much worse are her chances if you clean the pus out here?”

Siri considers for a moment, sits back on her feet, chews her bottom lip. She scowls, looks around at the surroundings--three people huddled against each other, one woman unconscious and running a fever she can see in the sheen of sweat all across her body, another woman at her elbow, asking her questions. Her pack full of medical supplies. A five hour walk back to Matamoros.

“Not much worse,” she says.

“And how much worse is it if you just let it get nastier for the next, how long?”

“Day, maybe. It depends on if her fever breaks. Survival chance does drop.” She reaches for her case, starts digging for the rags and scalpel.

“She’s not gonna be able to walk back.” The tattooed woman settles down on the floor, stretches her legs out. 

“It’s a five hour walk,” Siri says. “You eat and drink your fill, we put her in the wagon, the dogs pull her back.” She wipes down the woman’s leg with an alcohol-soaked rag, readies her scalpel for the first incision.

“Sounds good to me,” the tattooed woman says. Siri glances over at her, just before she makes the cut, and the woman’s eyes are focused on Siri’s hands. “Where’d you learn doctoring?” she asks, as Siri finally makes the cut. The woman on the floor twitches, makes a soft noise, but nothing more than that.

“New Mexico,” Siri replies, grabs a rag. God, there’s a lot of pus. 

“From who?” the tattooed woman asks, soft, curious.

“Another doctor, her name was Anja. Haven’t seen her in four years or so, I don’t know where the Legion sent her.” The tattooed woman immediately goes stiff, quiet, and Siri squeezes the abscess a little to get more pus. “I escaped with a friend about four months ago. I’m glad to be out.” The tension releases again, and Siri feels it release from her own shoulders too.

“Wasn’t sure when Bess told us about these folks. Didn’t know what we’d show up and find. Feel a little better about it now, though.”

“They’re good folk,” Siri says. “I trust them.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You know what accommodations are gonna be?”

“Right now we have a bunch of cots set up in one big room, but after we’ve got everyone in, you can all move into real bedrooms. They’re not exactly private, you'll still have to share, but it’s with three people instead of fifty.”

“Can I piss in private?” the woman asks.

“Yes,” Siri agrees. 

“Good enough for me. Hey, what’s your name? Bess said you’d all have bird names that might take some time to get used to.”

“You can just call me Siri. I don’t have a bird yet, so I don't officially have a bird name.”

“My name is Calidia. Cal is fine, though,” Calidia says. She moves like she's going to shake Siri’s hand, then thinks better of it. “We don’t really have anywhere nice for you to sleep, sorry. We have a couple blankets, I’ll donate mine.”

“You don't need to do that,” Siri says, quiet. She grabs another rag, makes another incision. 

“Sure do,” Calidia replies, equally quiet. “That’s just respect.”

“I’ve slept in worse places. I’m well fed, I’ve slept well, I haven’t been running for the last two weeks. You rest, I’ll just sleep on the floor.”

Calidia is quiet for a moment, and Siri braces for this argument, here, now, squeezing the second abscess, barely lit by the spluttering candle, Poorwill talking quietly with a few people out in the other room, other people in here, watching her work silently.

“Alright,” Calidia says, and Siri tries not to sigh too loudly. They’ll all be back at Matamoros in the next couple days, she can sleep in her own bed there, what’s two days of discomfort?

Siri wipes up the last of the pus, sets her rag aside, reaches for the bottle of alcohol again.

“That’s all I can do for now. Really, Matamoros is close enough you could get there before dawn if you walked quickly.”

“We need the rest,” Calidia says, shakes her head when Siri turns to look at her. “Maybe tomorrow, or the day after, but we can’t leave tonight.”

There are footsteps on the doorway, and Siri turns to see Poorwill.

“I’ve got a shotgun,” Poorwill says. “I'll sit at the door, keep watch.”

“Thank you,” Calidia says, and when she turns, her face catches the light, and Siri sees how dark the circles under her eyes are, how deep lines on her face, how tired the slope of her shoulders. She turns back to the other people in the room, and the exhaustion is gone--her shoulders squared again, mouth set, eyes hard. “I’m going to go eat something, and then I’m going to sleep. I suggest all of you do the same. Siri is taking care of her, and I’m sure she doesn’t need an audience.” Calidia stands, brushes past Poorwill, and the rest of the audience follows a moment later in a tangled scramble. 

Poorwill steps into the room, shotgun loose in her hand, studies Siri with tired eyes.

“You good?” she asks.

“I’m...fine?” Siri replies, looks up at Poorwill. What’s Poorwill suggesting? That this, of all things, will send her into a spiral?

“Just checkin’. Know a lot of folks’d get pukey, if they saw--” She make a gesture toward the used rags with her free hand.

“I’ve certainly seen worse than some _pus_ ,” Siri replies, raises her eyebrows. That’s almost funny. She’s been doing this job in even worse conditions than this, has watched people die of rabies, of tetanus, of sepsis, seen people beaten, bitten, bruised, limbs broken, skulls fractured, people bleeding out fast, people bleeding out slow, cazador stings and ant bites and deathclaw injuries and so many people with ruptured organs from trampling or headbutting or goring. This bite is bad, the woman might not make it, her leg almost certainly won’t without some potent antibiotics, but this isn’t the sort of thing she gets nervous over. She’s had time to practice all of this, seen so much of it that it barely twitches the wrongness sensor in her brain anymore.

“How’s that woman? With the tattoos?”

“Calidia,” Siri supplies. “She’s fine. Asks good questions, trusts me to do my job.”

“Good. Sometimes you get new folks and they just won’t listen to jack shit you tell ‘em. It’s always about how much smarter they are than you.” Poorwill pauses for a moment, suddenly remembers to holster her shotgun. “Glad she’s not one of ‘em. Don’t recognize her tribe, so she must be from out east.”

“I didn’t ask,” Siri murmurs, looks back to her patient, who twitches, her eyes flicking under her lids, but makes no large movements. “I’m certain she's not from New Mexico.”

Poorwill takes a couple steps back to the doorway, leans out.

“Hey, Calidia?”

Distantly, Calidia calls back, “Yeah?”

“Where you from?”

“Wyoming,” Calidia replies. “Right on the Utah border.”

“Thanks, just didn’t recognize your tattoos,” Poorwill calls, shuffles back into the room. “Wyoming, right on the Utah border,” she repeats. “So she’d be extra far west, I guess, not east. Definitely not New Mexico.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to leave tomorrow?” Siri asks.

“All depends on how your patient is doing and how fast these folks wanna move,” Poorwill replies, and relaxes, leans in the doorway. “I think it’d be nice to sleep in my own bed tonight, but I’m gonna go sit on some steps and stargaze until someone decides to join me instead.” 

“Do you think the dogs can pull her?” Siri asks.

“Probably,” Poorwill replies. “She can’t be more than a hundred pounds. Don’t think she'll be real comfy, but I don’t think comfy matters much when you got a death fever, either.”

Siri snorts, smiles at that.

“Probably not. I’ll see if I can get us going tomorrow morning, if I’m going to have to amputate, I’d really rather do it somewhere I can boil water and work with an electric light.”

“Yeah, I get you. Good luck. Good night, too. I’m gonna go post up. You’re welcome if you want, but I’ll be fine so don’t feel like you gotta.”

“I’ll probably sleep in here, thank you,” Siri agrees, and Poorwill nods, turns, and leaves the room.

Siri is alone for a little while, scoots back against a wall, tucks her knees up against her chest, watches her patient. Her odds really aren’t good. Who knows how much damage the venom has already done. Who knows how long her her fever has been this bad, how much damage there is from that. Who knows if she has a twisted ankle, or some other injury, there are just too many unknown variables, here in the middle of the night, in a drafty pre-war building that creaks alarmingly every time even the slightest breeze stirs the hot, damp air, lit by only a half inch of rancid tallow candle.

Calidia doesn’t come back quickly, and Siri moves her doctor’s bag out of the way, lets herself slide down the wall until she’s stretched on the floor, head pillowed on her dog’s side. She dozes off before anyone comes back, and then she snaps awake, watches whoever it is--Calidia and another of the refugees, she manages to tell after a long and terrified second--settle down on the other side of the patient, huddled together, silent, back to back where they lay on a folded-over blanket. No one else comes to join them, and Siri quickly falls back asleep, lulled by her dog’s breathing, the sound of someone’s pacing out in the other room, the saw of the cicadas, the chirruping of the crickets, distant dogs barking.

She wakes up often in the night--every time someone else in the room moves, from the patient's soft moaning a few hours before dawn, to Calidia’s half-hour-later exit and return, then the dog gets up to go drink something, comes back and lays next to Siri, rests her head on Siri’s stomach. 

When the light starts to break, Siri is up, goes and digs through the wagon to find something to eat and drink. They only have two gallons of water left, not enough to make it a whole extra day here without reinforcement. They’ll have to leave once everyone is awake.

They do seem to wake quickly, once someone is moving around--a few pick through the food left in the wagon, take a few sips of water, others gather their few things, seem to be preparing to leave.

Now, in the light of day, Siri can see the two children one woman tugs around--one at her breast, in a hand-sewn sling, the other with his hand in hers. He stares at Siri and Poorwill--who has come inside with the dawn--in turns. Siri smiles at him, and he gives her a steady, serious look back.

Siri’s dog and the other two pulling dogs start milling around, looking between Siri and Poorwill.

Siri orders her dog outside, sets out the food for the other two dogs, checks over the contents of the cart again.

“We’ll have to leave today,” she says to Poorwill, then looks up, catches the eye of another woman nearby. “We don’t have the supplies with us to stay longer. We can make the push right away, or wait a little later.”

“We should leave soon,” Poorwill announces. “It’s gonna be hot today, oughta move before it gets too much hotter.”

There’s a murmur around the group, and then they go quiet.

“What about Martina?” the mother asks.

“We’ll put her in the cart,” Poorwill replies. “It’ll be a squeeze, but we can get a whole person in there. It’s only for a few hours.”

“Alright,” the mother agrees, nods, looks sidelong at the cart. “If Cal thinks it’ll work…”

“It will,” Poorwill says, tips her chin up. “It’s a clear road home. It’s a few hours of walking, you'll all be in real beds by tonight.”

The mother just nods, turns away to fuss over her son again.

***

Calidia is the one who scoops Martina up, carries her to the wagon, arranges her so that her feet don’t drag and her head doesn’t hang over the front edge. she ends up curled up, knees angles awkwardly, arms folded up against her chest. Calidia keeps pace with the wagon, and Poorwill leads, and Siri lets herself fall farther and farther behind, watch people as they walk. There are a few limps, at least one person with a long-healed break, more than half favor their feet as they walk.

They’re an hour in, enough city blocks she’s lost count, when the boy collapses. His mother tries to get him to stand up, and Siri rushes over, is already kneeling next to him, before she can get more than a few words out.

“My feet hurt!” he bawls. “I can’t walk!”

“All of our feet hurt,” his mother says, glances sidelong at Siri like she’s terrified Siri is going to yell. “We’ll be somewhere we can stay soon. Then you won't have to walk.”

“Let me see,” Siri says, voice low. She pulls out a little plastic box of healing powder, the half-bottle of water she left stashed in her case, a few long strips of bandage.

The boy kicks off his sandals--the same tire-and-twine sort Poorwill leaves at the door--and holds up his feet.

His whole sole is covered in blisters, a few popped, most of them grown to massive size.

Well, fuck.

“Poorwill!” Siri calls, and Poorwill slows to a stop, looks over her shoulder. The others stop too, look back. “He shouldn’t be walking. His feet are already blistered, they’re just going to get infected if he breaks every blister.”

“Alright,” Poorwill says, amiable, and walks back. Her shotgun stays holstered, and she stops next to the boy, who regards her with open suspicion. “You ever had a piggyback ride?” she asks him.

“Oh, no, you don't need to--” the boy’s mother starts.

“I’m offering,” Poorwill interrupts.

“A couple times,” the boy says, after hesitating and looking at Poorwill, Siri, his mother.

“You want another one?” Poorwill asks, turns so her back is to him, spreads her arms. She looks back, eyebrows raised.

The boy looks to his mother, who gestures for him to go ahead, and he scrambles up onto Poorwill’s back, clings tightly as she stands up.

“I only got one back,” she announces as she walks toward the front of the group again. “I’d offer ‘em to everybody, but.” She laughs a little, starts to hum, loudly, as she starts leading the column again.

Siri scoops up the boys shoes, shoves them in her case, and his mother scrambles to keep up with Poorwill, join the front of the line. 

Calidia stays by the wagon, watches the whole thing unfold wordlessly.


	12. 285b (Land of Rest)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 12: [X](http://www.sacredharpbremen.org/lieder/200-bis-299/285b-land-of-rest).
> 
> Warning for a graphic medical scene.

It’s Calidia who picks up Martina, hauls her leg over one shoulder and her arm over the other, and follows Siri into the building, down to the clinic, and puts Martina in on the exam table. She moves to the corner of the room, out of the way, but doesn’t leave.

Siri looks at her for a moment, and Calidia shrugs.

“I said I would get everyone here safe. I owe it to her to take care of her.”

Siri nods, goes digging through her cabinets. Stethoscope, first. Check heart function, check her lungs.

“Can you got get some hot water and soap?” Siri asks. “Maybe ask around if anyone else has anything that’s bleeding or broken or that needs treatment today? And close the door when you come back.”

“Sure,” Calidia agrees, and goes to do what Siri asked.

Martina is still breathing, her heart still beating strong, so that’s good at least. Her leg looks worse, though--the pus is back, a spreading bruise covers most of her thigh, her whole leg from toes to thigh inflamed, hot, red where isn’t ugly purple-black.

Siri puts away her stethoscope, leans back on her counter. Martina isn’t moving much, and she’s covered in a sheen of sweat. 

Fever, bite recovery, whatever that infection is going to be, whatever is happening in that leg.

Fever reduction, supportive care, antibiotics, whatever...someone decides needs to be done with her leg.

Well, she’s already made a decision.

She turns, starts digging through the tall cabinet next to the counter, grabs a bottle of Bitter Drink. It’s not an antibiotic, but it’ll help with some of the discomfort at least. The fever can wait until after a decision about her leg. Supportive care--that’ll be long-term, nothing she can do with that now.

Now she just waits for Calidia to come back.

Calidia does come back, about halfway through Siri's administration of the bottle of Bitter Drink, carrying a hot plate, with a gallon jug of water and a metal pot and lid.

“There are a lot of blisters, but someone else is already taking care of them at a station in the big room with the beds. All the signs are taken care of, everybody’s trying to eat and drink what they need. Martina’s the only priority.” Calidia stands in the doorway, waits for Siri to say something.

“Alright, thank you.” Siri looks up, smiles. Calidia doesn’t smile back, just watches Siri’s hands. “You can set that down on the counter, then we need to talk.”

“Yeah?” Calidia asks.

“Yes,” Siri says, gives up on the Bitter Drink for now, sets it aside. God, she could use some herself, she’s exhausted after bad sleep and the slowly-mounting stress. “Martina’s leg.”

“Doesn’t look good,” Calidia agrees, sets the hot plate down, starts shuffling things around.

“It might need to be amputated.”

Calidia falters, turns to look at Siri.

“You trying to make her bleed out?” she asks, voice low.

“It’s infected, still bleeding freely under the skin, and it's going to go necrotic soon. I’ve done what I can, but that’s still not going to be enough to save her if the infection makes it out of her leg and into the rest of her body.”

Calidia looks at Siri, eyes hard, scowling, and she looks at Martina, expression softening only marginally.

“Can you keep her from bleeding out?” she asks. 

“There will be some blood loss, no matter what I do,” Siri replies. “This is a matter of what will do the least harm and the most good.”

“I’ll talk to what people she has. Get whatever you need ready. I’ll see what I can do.” Calidia pours the whole gallon of water into the pot, puts the lid on the pot, and studies the hot plate for just a moment, hand hovering, before turning it on. “I don’t wanna make the call, because she’s not mine.”

“Of course, of course,” Siri agrees. “I’ll get my things ready.”

Calidia nods, lets her eyes slide from Siri to Martina, and then turns and heads for the door.

***

They agree to the surgery. There are two of them--one boy, maybe eight years old, with a clubfoot, the other a woman in her mid-twenties, maybe the same age as Martina, and the more Siri looks at her the more alike they look. They both keep their eyes on Martina, as Siri talks them through the idea. Blood poisoning, necrosis, she’ll lose the leg no matter what, but if it goes now, she can heal faster.

“Do it,” the woman says, and the boy looks between Martina and Siri and nods.

Calidia ushers them out of the room, then comes back.

“What do you need me to do, Doc?” she asks, and Siri has a brief flash of Runner standing aside, shifting from foot to foot, deferentially calling her “Doc” like it was the highest form of address she could muster. 

“You don't have to help, I can--”

“Yes, I do,” Calidia interrupts, balls her hands into fists at her side. She sets her jaw, and for a moment, Siri sees someone else in Calidia, too--Head Vulture, maybe, eyes afire, insisting she’s going to find her wife, or Anja, ordering some poor terrified husband around the house as she worked at a difficult birth. “I got them into this, so I’ll help fix what I can.”

“Alright,” Siri agrees, closes her eyes, breathes in and out. “Alright. How good are you with blood, or touching bare muscle?”

“I can be fine, whatever you need me to do.”

“Alright.” Siri huffs, once, rubs at her forearms, studies her patient. “Go get Amelia, she’s the one about this tall--” Siri gestures, “--looks like someone put a bowl on her head, cut her hair, and then let it grow out for a bit. Tell her you need something to bury medical waste in, and she’ll probably smile at you and act like it’s the best thing she’s done all day. I’ll set up things here, and we’ll be ready to start when you get back.”

Calidia leaves, comes back ten minutes later with a footlocker. She sets that, and a pile of towels only a few uses from being rags, on the floor just inside the door, closes and locks the door.

“Let’s get started,” she says, looks Siri in the eye.

***

Calidia doesn’t read her mind, but it seems damn near to it, the right tool in her hand just a moment after she asks for it. Siri expects her to step away first when she pulls out the tourniquet--rubber tubing, a belt, and the leverage she can manage with Calidia to hold Martina’s shin in place as she tightens it inch by inch--and then again when she starts in with the knife--it’s sharp, almost uncomfortably so after years of subpar instruments, and it cuts easily--and then again when the muscle and flesh are peeled away, oozing blood into a towel, and she reaches for the bonesaw, holds the flaps of skin aside.

Instead of leaving, walking away even just to take a breath, Calidia gently pulls aside her hand, takes the pieces of skin.

“Cut faster,” she says, and Siri does as she says, sets to work on the bone.

It goes fast, and when it’s done, Siri wraps the removed leg up in the rags, stows it in the locker, and then goes to wash her hands. 

Calidia--still in her slave tunic, Siri suddenly realizes--just stand aside, waits her turn, face impassive.

“Go ahead and wash your hands, then we can move her to a bed.”

“What are you gonna do with her leg?” Calidia asks, takes Siri’s place over the hot plate and pot of water.

“They have a graveyard nearby. I was going to take it out there, bury it. We don’t have anywhere else to dispose of body parts, and it seemed like good place to inter it.”

“I’ll come help dig.”

“You don’t have to,” Siri says. “You can stay and rest, have a real meal. Go talk to Amelia about getting some new clothes. Go look after your people.”

“Bess is doing a fine job of it, I checked earlier. Everyone knows I’m here helping you with Martina.”

Siri sees herself staring back, the stubborn insistence on arranging the furniture in the clinic by herself, of carrying up as many crates of supplies as she could, of staying latest packing lunches, just to make sure there were enough. Of scolding Dredge, and Twist, and Runner, and Photo, and Lucy, trying to get them to follow her directions, because that was what she needed to do. That was her job. That was what she _needed_ to do.

“Alright,” Siri agrees. “Let’s get her moved.”

They carry Martina to one of the beds in the far end of the room, under the windows, and Siri pulls a sheet up over her.

Siri asks Swan to watch over her while they’re gone, and Swan agrees, readily settles down on the bed next to Martina’s, quilt in her lap.

The burial is quick, quiet, more functional than formal, and Calidia goes to find a rock to mark the spot.

“Figure she’ll want to come back out here and eulogize it when she’s up and moving again,” she says, drops a chunk of rain-smoothed ornate masonry on top of the freshly-replaced ground. “She was a macabre little shit sometimes.”

“Sometimes that’s the best way to do things,” Siri says, quiet, leans on her shovel.

“May Martina’s leg rest here, on into eternity, providing food for the bugs and crawlies and not any coyotes. It served her well until she got bit by a nightstalker, whereupon it didn’t serve her at all. We place this marker of a big chunk of rock here to memorialize its final days of uselessness, and uplift its previous twenty-three years of faultless performance.” Calidia sticks her leg out to kick the chunk of masonry when she mentions it, keeps her hands folded behind her back, looks down her nose like she’s at a Sunday pulpit.

Siri starts laughing, the longer Calidia talks, the more she talks up the leg, laughs until she feels tears prick in her eyes.

When Calidia stops, the two of them stand in companionable silence until Calidia heaves a sigh, turns back to the building. Siri follows.

“I should treat the other injuries,” Siri says. 

“I’d like some new clothes,” Calidia agrees. “You think I can get some pants?”

“Swan would probably love to get you some pants,” Siri replies. “She’s a big believer in pants.”

“God, it’s been so long.” Calidia sighs, runs a hand back through her hair. In the daylight, unshadowed, it’s duller, grayer, limper. Calidia just looks exhausted and middle-aged in this light, not hardened, prepared, intense. “Been years since I had a pocket that wasn’t just shoving shit into a bra.”

“I don’t remember how I did without them,” Siri agrees. 

“Is there somewhere I can bathe? I don’t wanna put on new, clean clothes when I’m like this.” Calidia gestures to her dust-covered legs, the bloodstains on her tunic, the eczema-rash patches on her arms, the bald spots on her hairy legs where some injury has left the skin pitted and discolored.

“There’s a stock tank out back, you can use water from that. There’s not any running water, so we usually bathe outside in a washtub, we can set up a screened in area if you want everyone to bathe.”

“I'll work on ‘em,” Calidia says. “I’ll see you over dinner.” Calidia speeds up her pace, and Siri slows hers, makes her leisurely way back to the toolshed to replace the shovel.

***

There are eight children.

She finally manages to count them over dinner, when everyone--Birds and refugees alike--spread out on the bare dirt “lawn” in chairs, on blankets, all of them carrying the paper-wrapped lunches they made a week ago. 

There’s the boy who had stopped walking from his blisters--someone had sat down, carefully popped all of them wrapped his feet in bandages and healing powder, before Siri could get to him--and the boy with the club foot, sitting next to each other. There’s the infant on its mother’s back. One toddler girl in pigtails, torn between Regina--who offers a lap to sit in--and her mother--also offering a lap, but not as much of one. A twelve year old girl with deep-set eyes, who looks exhausted, frightened, sticks close to a quartet of older, maybe-still-teenage girls who have the same look in their eyes as they watch the men. Poorwill is nearby, same wary look in her eyes, as she watches the girls watch everyone else. There are three other little girls, all around the same age, and between them Siri can count five dolls, three pre-war toy trucks, two teddy bears, and a homemade two-story dollhouse Cardinal and Poorwill had carted out earlier in the day that had been greeted with shrieks of delight.

Most of the people, though, are adults and teenagers. Most of the men are old, or disabled, most of the women too young to be married or too old to be worth marrying. Calidia certainly isn’t the oldest person in the crowd.

Siri sets up near the door, periodically leaves her place to go check on Martina, who is peacefully asleep--not anaesthetized, not fever-delirious, not forced unconscious with ether and a prayer to cut down on painkillers. Just asleep. Still running a fever, but it’s slowly lowering. Her bandages need changed often, but even the bleeding does seem to be slowing, the sutures holding, flesh appropriately warm to the touch. Siri watches people when she’s not checking, though, tries to count. Her best count is fifty-four people. She tries to keep an eye out for things that might need checked--scurvy, rickets, pregnancies, limping, open wounds no one has mentioned yet, sustained coughing. She doesn’t find many, which is a pleasant surprise.

She eats her dried fruit and tortilla chips and cheese and brahmin jerky quietly, watches the bustle, the laughter, the way people orbit around each other, and it leaves her with a sharp pang in her chest, for just a moment, before Sparrow--who has only gotten frecklier since Siri arrived, her whole too-tall forehead and too-long chin just covered in them now--settles in on a deck chair right next to Siri, one foot on the ground, the other stretched out on the footrest, her own paper-wrapped lunch open to reveal nearly identical contents, though her dried fruit looks to be something tropical, instead of something temperate.

“It’s nice to have people around again,” she says. “The whole three hundred’d drive me up the damn wall every winter, but after a decade of no one coming home in the fall, you get to miss it. Nice to have kids around, too.”

“Can’t wait to play pass-the-baby,” Cardinal says, settles down on Siri’s other side. She doesn’t have a packaged meal, but she does have a wine bottle and a cigarette. “How long until she lets anyone else touch the baby for any length of time?”

“If you keep smoking, never,” Sparrow replies, does a long, exaggerated swing of her leg just to cross her ankles on the footrest. Cardinal gives her a snorting laugh. “Two weeks for anyone she came with, seven weeks for someone like Siri, three months for someone like us.”

“I’m calling it at one week, three weeks, five weeks,” Cardinal replies. “Siri, you want in on the wager?”

“What’s the bet?” Siri asks.

“Whoever is closest gets to call on the farthest for two chores, next-closest for one.” Cardinal takes a sip from her wine bottle, hums softly, takes another.

“I’ll play,” Siri agrees, settles back in her chair. She watches the mother for a moment before she lets her eyes cast over the crowd. “Two weeks, two weeks, four weeks.”

“Ooh, the compressed timeline. Good luck.” Cardinal lights her cigarette and leans back. “Only had one or two in this situation fit the compressed timeline. Good luck, and no cheating.”

“No cheating, like she ain’t one of the benchmarks,” Sparrow grumbles. “The cheating is the fun part anyway.”

They continue to go back and forth, and Siri listens with only half an ear as she watches the crowd ebb and flow, watches the way the smaller groups break and recombine, watches Calidia wander between all of them--in pants, _jeans_ , with a patched knee and one small hole in a back pocket--stop, talk for a bit, laugh, move on to another group, never stopping anywhere for too long. 

Calidia is one of the last to go inside for the night, helps Swan and Finch clean up the yard, carry the garbage, helps Siri and Cardinal and Sparrow haul chairs inside, hesitates to walk into the building for the last time, just behind Siri.

“Can I sleep in the infirmary?” she asks. “I wanna be able to check on Martina overnight.”

“Only until she’s able to be moved out,’ Siri says. “I don’t want others trying to move into the clinic.”

Calidia laughs.

“You got it Doc.”

They turn down the hall together.

“If you don’t mind my asking--how do you know her?”

“I had a daughter about her same age,” Calidia replies, voice distant and eyes locked on something Siri can’t see. “It’s not her, but.” She shakes her head. “And it’s my fault the nightstalker got her. I should have scouted further, kept the gun longer, gotten between her and it. Done anything different.”

Siri grunts softly, no real words to fill the stretching silence. Calidia lets the silence stretch, too, slows when Siri stops at her bedroom door.

“How is she gonna get around?” Calidia asks, digs her hands into her pockets.

“We can find her a wheelchair, or build her crutches. There are ways.” She won’t be able to go the long distances she might need to, on crutches, and even in a chair she might have trouble out in the wastes. Was this the right choice? Did she make more of a decision for this woman than she meant to?

“Alright.” Calidia nods, rocks on her feet. “I’m gonna turn in. Have a good night, Doc. See you tomorrow.”

“Mmhmm,” Siri agrees, opens her bedroom door, closes it as soon as both she and her dog are through it.

She can’t hear Calidia settle into the next room over, and she gives up after just a minute, turns on her radio to listen to the late-night norteño as she changed into her pajamas, lays down, and scoots over so her dog can hop into bed with her.

She falls asleep, and sleeps deeply until she wakes, sweating, heart pounding from a dream she can only remember in flashes of fear and desperation.

She walks down to the kitchen, dog trailing behind, is almost surprised when she sees no one else there. There aren’t even any remains of someone else's midnight snack.

It’s strange after the full day of constant noise, to come back here and find this place empty.

It’s nice, too, though, a weight off her shoulders, as she sits and nurses her glass of water, watches the empty yard and the swan pond out the dining room window, lets her heart slow, listens to the creak of the building and the chirp of the crickets, and the hoot of an owl outside.


	13. 332 (Sons Of Sorrow)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 13: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJwL5LskO84).
> 
> Warning for blood, violence, and references to sexual assault.

Head Vulture has been quiet since she and Henny had parted, keeps up her pace but doesn’t talk quite so much.

Everyone had agreed to go to Dog Town, though it’s clear not everyone knows what there is in Dog Town. Mad Dog and Singer had both shrugged and agreed, but they're two days out, hiding from a caravan on the road, when Drummer tugs on Lucinda’s sleeve, leans in.

“Who’s in Dog Town?” she asks, voice low. Head Vulture glances at her, then goes back to watching caravans pass below their vantage point.

“Got a few people I need to get out.”

“So you’re risking all of us for how many people?” Drummer says.

“Three women and three children.”

“Who?” Runner asks, scrambles closer.

“The two other women married to my husband, someone else from my tribe, and those two women's children.”

“Who of ours is here?” Head Vulture asks.

“Twin Seagull,” Lucinda replies. “She’s--she’s the last person I saw here. She got moved somewhere else when I was nineteen, but I think she's still here.”

“And she’ll get ‘em back out to safety,” Head Vulture agrees. “She’ll be old enough to know the way.”

“How are you gonna get those two women and their kids out?” Runner asks. “Got a long damn ways to get in and out of town.”

“Mad Dog, are you interested in making a distraction?” Lucinda asks.

“Hey babe, you in?” Mad Dog asks Singer in turn.

“What sort of distraction do you want?” Singer asks Lucinda.

“And what do you expect us to do while you’re doing it?” Runner asks. 

“You can sit here, or you can help us get in and out, or you can help with a distraction.” Lucinda shakes off her backpack, starts digging to the bottom. “I’m thinking a couple of big explosions,” she says to Singer and Mad Dog. “Henny dug up a cache of six blocks of C4. If it's just the two of you, plant them all somewhere they’ll do a lot of damage, if there are two groups--” She nods to Runner, “--then you each get three, plant them in two different places where they’ll do a lot of damage.”

“Anywhere we shouldn’t put them?” Mad Dog asks, reaches out to take the first block.

“Avoid the slaughterhouse and dog districts. We’ll be in the dog district.”

“We can go anywhere else though?” Runner asks.

“Anywhere else,” Lucinda agrees.

“Pass it over.”

Lucinda doles out the explosives.

“So you and me,” Head Vulture says. “How do we get where we’re going? Ain’t like I can walk real fast.”

“I can cover you,” Drummer says. “Spent a little time here, when I was younger, know a few back ways.”

“Me too,” Lucinda agrees. “Between the two of us, we can get in and get out.”

“Then let’s break, get in position,” Mad Dog says. “We'll set off our explosion at dusk. “

“We'll set off ours a little later,” Runner says. Burn nods. “Give ‘em a little time to sweat.”

‘We'll move after the first one. That should give us enough time to get Aeliana and Tanya and the girls out.”

“Meet back here when we’re done?” Mad Dog asks.

“Meet back here,” Lucinda agrees. A nod goes around the group, and packs are abandoned as they split up.

***

The streets aren’t bustling any more than they used to, and no one seems to notice the three of them, or at least doesn’t pay them any more mind. Drummer keeps up a constant chatter of made-up names and relationships, and Head Vulture happily adds to the fiction, convolutes it, helps her turn it into a whole web of affairs and illegitimate children and interpersonal drama. Lucinda listens, laughs in the right places, keeps her eyes open and watching as they approach her old house.

The front door is open for the meager breeze, just the screen door closed. The twins are out front, playing hopscotch, and Lucinda turns to Head Vulture and Drummer, indicates for them to wait where they are, across the street. Head Vulture takes the opportunity to sit down on someone else’s stoop with a grunt and a sigh. Drummer leans against the brick wall next to her, arms crossed.

Lucidan crosses the street.

The twins notice her, slow their playing, watch her with suspicious eyes.

“Hi, Aunt Lucia,” says the one Lucinda thinks-- _thinks_ \--is Valentina. They look more like Aeliana, now, even just a few months older than they were.

“Hello,” Lucinda says, smiles at them. “Are your mom and Tatiana and Valeria all in tonight?”

“Yeah,” says probably-Tullia. “Are you really Aunt Lucia?”

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees. “You girls go back to playing, I wanna talk to your mom.”

Lucinda steps past the twins, who look at Lucinda, at the people she came with, at each other, and then go back to their hopscotch game.

Lucinda unlatches the door, steps into the kitchen.

Valeria is at the stove, turns around to see who it is, falters when she meets Lucinda’s eyes.

“You’re--” she starts, and freezes.

“Across the street, there’s an old woman with a cane and short hair, and a woman a little older than me with braids. You should go with them.”

“Who?” comes a male voice from the back room, and there’s the sound of someone getting up.

“Get Aeliana and your mother,” Lucinda continues, voice low and flat. “This is your way out.”

“What you did to--to that one man, are you--” Valeria starts, moving toward the front bedroom where there are sounds of other people moving around.

“I’m going to do it again,” Lucinda agrees. “That’s why I’m recommending you leave.”

The door to the back bedroom opens, and Lucinda turns to look at her husband, face placid.

“You--Lucia?” he asks, reaches out.

“You stay right there,” Lucinda says, tips down her chin. “We’ll talk in just a minute. Valeria, seriously, get them and go. Tell those two I’ll catch up as soon as I can.””

Lucinda and her husband stay frozen, eyes locked, as Valeria scrambles to the front bedroom, murmurs something quick and sharp to Tatiana and Aeliana, and then leads them outside. The twins complain a little, but Aeliana hushes them.

Lucinda kicks the door shut.

Aeliana turns around to look, but Head Vulture calls her from across the street.

“We oughta be getting along,” Head Vulture says. 

“What’s going on?” Tatiana asks, looks straight at Head Vulture.

“She wanted to get you all out. Made us hike all the way up here to come get you.” Head Vulture holds out her hand. “My name is Head Vulture, I’m one of ‘em that raised her.”

“Where--where are we going?” Aeliana asks, and scoops up the closer of the two twins. Valeria scoops up the other.

“For now, out of town. After that…” Drummer trails off, looks to Head Vulture, who pulls back her hand.

“To Matamoros, or somewhere else if you got somewhere else to go. I’m sure our folks back home would love to have you, though.”

Aeliana looks to Tatiana, to Valeria, to Head Vulture.

“I’ll go,” Valeria says. She swallows hard, looks Head Vulture in the eye, and Head Vulture nods.

“Don’t think we got a whole lotta time before shit starts going sideways, so let’s book it.”

Head Vulture leads them down the street, back the way she and Drummer came. Drummer tries to keep up a light conversation, and Tatiana cautiously engages.

Aeliana keeps glancing over her shoulder, until Valeria has a quiet word with her, nods at Head Vulture.

“Do you really trust her?” Aeliana hisses.

“She needs a cane to walk, we can always outrun her if we have to,” Valeria whispers. “We’ll be fine.”

Aeliana considers this for a moment, then nods, sighs.

***

“You betrayed the Legion!” her husband yells. He stands in the bedroom doorway, holds tight to it like he needs it to keep himself upright.

“Only after they betrayed me,” Lucinda says, low and slow. What does she have here to make this slow and painful?

“Harlot!” he snarls, like the word means anything. Like she ever cared. Like she took pride in being his property.

“You don’t know the half,” she replies. There are a few cooking knives in the knife block. Those will be good.

She takes a single step forward, blocks his escape.

“We don’t want you here,” he says, takes a half step back into the bedroom. He looks afraid. He _is_ afraid.

Stupid man never looked at them and saw people.

“Well, that’s just too bad.” Lucinda draws her bowie knife. It’s long, heavy. Only thing she’s used that’s heavier is a machete. It’s a good knife, powerful, dangerous.

Killed the man in the Divide easy enough with it. Here? Now? This man is weaker, more scared, unarmed.

And she hates him more.

“I’m going to call--”

“You can scream, and scream, and scream if you want to,” Lucinda says. She steps forward, block the bedroom doorway. All she has to do is pin him down, hamstring him on both legs, leave him curled sobbing on the floor. “It’s not going to help.”

He’s slow, stupid, too comfortable with three women to work for him, do his chores, chase his children, riding high on his success as a dog breeder. It’s easy to lunge, send him toppling back onto the bed, slash at his chest--it won’t kill him, not fast, but it’ll be enough to slow him down a little more.

He tries to hold his hands up, ward her off, and she turns the knife in her hand, one easy movement, drives it through his palm. She can feel it grind against one of his palm bones. He yanks his hand back, scrambles back toward the wall.

Lucinda grabs his pants leg, hauls him a little closer, lifts his leg to slash along the back of his thigh, as deep as she can with a transverse cut at this speed. It splatters blood across the faded yellow bed sheets. She slashes again, gets deeper, and he screams.

Lucinda grabs him by the throat, leans in as she tries to push her away, leaves bloody smears on her shoulder as his hand bleeds.

“It never helped us,” she hisses between gritted teeth. She throws her leg over his torso, straddles his diaphragm. “So why do you think it would help you.”

He tries to shove her away, opens his mouth to say something, and she strikes, shoves her knife--sharp edge down--into his mouth, cuts at what she can. He screams, no words, as she takes a chunk of his tongue. He fumbles at her hands, and she lets him push her away. 

“No words, can’t run, no one coming to your rescue,” Lucinda tells him, low, wipes her knife on the bedsheets. “How does it feel?” she asks. 

He looks up at her with wide, terrified eyes, and god, _god_ it feels good. It feels good to leave him powerless, afraid, defenseless.

He fumbles at his face, tries to say something that comes out garbled, eyes just going wider as he starts to sob.

“How many times?” Lucinda asks, gets off of him. She catches his good leg as he tries to kick her--he lands a glancing blow on her hip, it’ll bruise but she stays standing--and slashes the back of that one, too. “How many times?” she asks again. “Once a week for three years? More than that?” She doesn’t need him to bleed out, not yet, and when she does that it’ll be fast, probably from the carotids, so she can hang him up by his feet, bleed him out, paint with his blood.

“I ‘on’t ‘ow!” he wails. “I ‘on’t ow what your ‘alking about!”

“How many times did you try to get me pregnant?” she asks, drops his leg, advances again. God, there’s blood everywhere. “Once a week for five years?”

“I--I--’at’s our _’uty_!” he insists. “I _had_ to!”

“Fuck you,” Lucinda snarls, and stabs him in the stomach. 

He curls up, clutches at his stomach, screams again.

Lucinda steps back, thinks.

The others will be far enough away now. Drummer and Head Vulture are smart, can get them to ground, and if mad Dog and Runner haven’t set off their explosives yet, they will soon, which will make being out in the streets dangerous.

He doesn’t deserve to go quick, not really. Deserves to lay here and bleed out, suffer through every second of this.

There’s still the twins’ sidewalk chalk, laying just inside the front door. She saw it on her way in.

So maybe she doesn’t need the blood.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she says to him, and he looks at her, tears streaming down his cheeks, still holding his face. “Not that you’ve got anywhere to go,” she murmurs, then turns and goes to get the chalk.

She can hear him whimpering as she shoves the chalk in her pocket, and his whimpering gets louder as she turns and walks back to the bedroom.

“I ‘idn’t ‘ow!” he wails when she steps back through the doorway.

“Piss-poor excuse,” Lucinda says, and turns to the bare wall. She pulls out the chalk.

It’s awkward in her hand, too long, too big around to write with like a normal pencil or pen, but it only takes a few strokes--the shape of the head, neck, the front edge of the wings--for her to get used to it. it’s easy to make the right shape on the wall--the finger-like pinions, the diamond-shaped tail, the longer body. The coloring is still hard in chalk, same as it was in blood--the stripes, the outlines, the blocky shapes of a shrike’s coloring. It’s not identical to the one she drew near Strix’s body, but it’s close enough. It’s distinctive, hard to mistake, hard to fake, hard to copy. Underneath, she writes,

**YOU’RE NEXT LANIUS**

She shoves the chalk back in her pocket, turns back to her husband, who’s whimpering and wailing and desperate pleases have faded into labored breathing and silent tears. 

“Are all of the men still jealous of you?” Lucinda asks. “You and your slave the terrorist? You and your wife the harlot? You, who fathered how many children and has none of them to recommend you except the girls?” She draws her knife again, spins it in her hand. “Maybe you coulda stopped this, twelve years ago when they brought me to your house. Maybe you coulda stopped this earlier, when Tatiana got here. Maybe earlier than that, when Aeliana did.” She flips her knife again. “But here we are.”

She slashes at his leg, just because it’s close, then again at his stomach. He tries to kick again, mostly fails, and she grabs his leg--again--and slashes across the back of his heel, cuts his Achilles tendon in one quick movement.

“Stomach wounds like that, you’ve got maybe a few days, at best,” Lucinda says. “Only so much a stimpak and some stitches can do for stomach acid in your abdominal cavity.” She grabs his right knee, pushes his leg out to the side, and he flails.

She drives the knifepoint into the top of his thigh, just below the bend where his leg joins his body. He screams, and she yanks it out.

“Femoral artery,” she says, as blood pours out and he gapes. “You’ve got a couple minutes. Make the best of them.”

She turns, sheathes her knife, and walks out the front door.

***

There are a lot of people out in the streets, and Lucinda sticks to the back alleys, avoids a crowd whenever she can--if she wasn’t covered in blood she would slide into them, disappear in among all the people, but as-is, she’s covered in her husband's blood, limps a little from the certainly-growing bruise on her hip.

She has to get somewhere with the ledgers. She needs to find Twin Seagull. Hopefully she’s still here and this isn’t an idiot’s errand. 

it doesn’t take long to notice how many people are all heading to the same place, and then to look up and notice the plume of grey smoke.

Well, something must have gone down in rubble.

She tries to put on a little more speed.

***

This district is nearly empty, already locked up for the night. It’s easy enough to find the records office--it’s labelled, for convenience--and then easy enough to find a loose half-brick in an alleyway, heave it at a side window that’s low enough she can climb through it.

The whole building is dark--expected, and she takes a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dim streetlight through the front windows.

When she can read the labels on the filing cabinets--god there are a lot of cabinets--she goes looking for the one labeled 2274.

It’s about halfway back, shoved in a corner, covered in patches of rust, and with only three drawers. She yanks the first open, looks over the ledgers. They’re arranged by year brought in, and she starts searching for the one sub-marked 2268.

She finally finds the file, finds a thin notebook with maybe forty documents in it, and starts flipping through.

Most of the people are from Colorado, Utah, Arizona. In fact, there’s only one she finds under “Texas,” and it’s the description of Twin Seagull that she finds there: “long hair, brown eyes, scar across left thigh, tattoo of a bird on her chest.”

Underneath, there’s a short history of where she’s been--Amarillo (2271), Clayton (2271), Dog Town - slaughterhouse (2274), Dog Town--

Dog Town - suppression work (n/a).

Halfway to frumentarius, then. Maybe more than halfway, if she’s been moved since then.

That’ll be a record here. If she’s lucky, she’ll have her own little apartment she shares with a few other women. If she’s unlucky, she’ll have a husband and a kid and just do the secretarial work of crucifying people. She shoves the book into her belt, continues on.

Suppression work is in the next room over, and she finds the 2274 ledger easily enough. This one is harder to look through, she has to dig more. It’s split into “returning” and “new” workers, at least, and under the “new” workers there aren’t more than three dozen. It’s easy enough to find Twin Seagull--she’s named “Tacita” now, apparently--and find where she should be. She’s not listed as having moved here, either, so there’s hope.

Back out the window, down the street, toward the address marked in the book.

In the distance, she hears a rumble, and another plume of smoke rises.

***

“Where are we going?” Aeliana asks, looks between Drummer and Head Vulture.

“Got a little place out of town,” Head Vulture says. She’s fallen to the back of the group, Drummer taking over at the front, and she’s puffing a little, clearly working to keep up this pace. “Lay low there for a few hours ‘til Little Bird and the Twin get back. Then we send all of you on your way toward somewhere safer, and the rest of us, from me on down to, uh--” she pauses.

“Singer is the youngest,” Drummer supplies.

“From me on down to Singer, we go on our merry way to wherever Little Bird and Mad Dog decide we should go next.” 

“Where are we going to go?” Valeria asks. She hoists her twin higher, and the girl stays quiet, at least.

“Way south,” Head Vulture says. “‘S a nice place. Lots of grandmas, good medical care, you get three square meals a day, there’s other young folks and kids, Swan and Poorwill will tag-team shotgun anyone who tries to come in the front door without permission.” Head Vulture cracks her cane against the pavement, head held high. “Safer’n any other place I know in the wasteland.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Aeliana asks.

“‘Cause you can outrun me,” Head Vulture replies. “You can go back, if you want, but I wouldn’t really recommend it. Heard some of the rumors about that girl, don’t think I wanna see what she does to that man.”

“She’s going to kill him,” Valeria says, soft at first, then louder. “She’s going to kill him.”

“Most likely, yeah,” Head Vulture agrees. 

They’re all quiet for a long stretch.

“He deserves it,” Valeria says, quieter, and the silence fills with that statement.


	14. 378t (Heavenly Port)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 14: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_68yIZ-eFQ).

It’s a pre-war apartment complex, and it’s easy to steal a shirt off the clothesline out back, change shirts, use her bloody shirt to wipe as much blood as she can off her coat and pants, try to make herself presentable. It only helps a little. She decides to cut her losses, leave her bloody shirt and coat crumpled in a corner.

The address is on the third floor of the building, and the stairs creak alarmingly under her feet as she climbs them. There’s no one out on the landings, and all the apartment doors are closed.

She knocks on the right one, folds her hands behind her back, tries to square her shoulders.

Twin Seagull isn't the one who answers the door, but it’s another woman, at least.

“I have private business with Tacita,” she says, puts on her sternest frumentarius voice. The woman who answers the door raises her eyebrows, looks suspicious, but nods and turns to go get Twin Seagull.

“Tacita? There’s someone here to talk to you about work.”

There’s some movement from inside the apartment, and a moment later, Twin Seagull--nine years older than she was last Lucinda saw her, aging graciously; she must be near forty now, and that’s a strange thought--a moment later, Twin Seagull appears around a corner.

“You wanted to speak with me?” she asks, eyebrows raised slightly. There’s a flicker of something on her face that Lucinda can’t quite catch.

“Yes. You’ve gotten a new assignment. I’ll need you to come with me.”

“Of course. Give me just a moment to get my things together.”

“You can come inside,” the woman who opened the door says, stands aside as first Twin Seagull, and then Lucinda, step inside. Lucinda stays standing in the entry hallway. There are four pairs of shoes--three pairs of sandals, one pair of boots--on a mat, a row of winter coats hanging above them, and at first her eyes just glance over them as she tries to stand, quiet and polite, in this hallway. One of them eventually catches her eye, though, and after checking to see if anyone is watching--the woman at the door is sitting on one of the ratty couches, facing away, reading a book, and no one else is visible, though she can hear a trio of voices further back in the apartment--she reaches out to touch it. She checks the shape of the sleeves, the length ,the collar, the status of its pockets, and it doesn’t take more than fifteen seconds to identify it--it’s the same style of coat Head Vulture wears, the same sort of coat she left outside, the same coat Old Raven died in. It’s a coat she recognizes.

Twin Seagull comes back, a pack over her shoulder, clothes changed to something more roadworthy--denim jeans instead of cotton leggings, a close-fitting t-shirt instead of something flirting with the concept of a dress, a ragged straw cowboy hat. She has a pack over her shoulder, and she sets it down to pull on the coat Lucinda recognized.

“What sort of job is it?” Twin Seagull asks.

“You’ll be going south,” Lucinda replies. “We have reports of some suspicious activity there.”

“Can’t wait,” Twin Seagull says, grins. There’s a flicker of something in her eyes again. She jams her feet in the boots, scoops up her pack again.

“Thank you,” Lucinda calls back over her shoulder, as she leads Twin Seagull out of the apartment.

They’re both quiet all the way down to the front door.

“Little Bird,” Twin Seagull says, voice bursting with affection, when Lucinda puts her hand on the pushbar.

“Oh, thank god, I wasn’t sure you knew who I was,” Lucinda says, exhales.

“Hell, I’d know you a mile off,” Twin Seagull replies, scrubs at the top of Lucinda’s head with her palm so Lucinda ducks and laughs.

“You know who I am besides that?” Lucinda asks, and pushes open the door.

“Got a letter from someone who signed it ‘OE’ a few months ago. Told me all about you.” Twin Seagull follows her out, around the back of the building.

“What did she say?” Lucinda asks.

“Nothing very flattering, I can tell you that,” Twin Seagull says. She runs her thumbs along the backside of her backpack shoulder straps. “But hell, a way out is a way out. How’d you get here?”

“Broke a few towns, and Head Vulture is with me.”

“She got out?” Twin Seagull asks, breaking into an even wider grin--the grin of a kid at the candy display, the nightstalker in the lambing pen, the deathclaw in the dead-end cave.

“She got out,” Lucinda agrees, and it’s impossible to not smile back.

“Hell, do I get to see her again?”

“Are you getting out with us?”

“Absolutely,” Twin Seagull responds. “I thought I was gonna have to walk out on my own, and now here you're just getting me out. It’s a hell of a chance.”

Lucinda picks up her coat and bloody shirt, pulls on the coat, shoves the shirt into a coat pocket.

“Let’s go,” she says. “My distractions are both blown, and I think it’s about to get a lot harder to leave town.”

“Hell, how organized was this?” Twin Seagull asks.

“Not as much as I’d like,” Lucinda replies. “Organized enough, though.”

“So where are we actually going?”

They start down the alleys, boots well-worn and quiet on the pavement.

“Was hoping you could take a couple people back to Matamoros, since the rest of us gotta keep moving.”

“You got a clear route? Who’s out?”

“There’s a clear route, we came up through Amarillo and Red Springs, but it’s been long enough on both that you might want to swing wide.”

“Hey, Little Bird?” Twin Seagull asks, slows her pace. Lucinda slows too, turns around to see her.

“Yeah?” Lucinda asks.

“You just trust everyone you meet right off the bat like this?”

Lucinda freezes, but all Twin Seagull does is quirk her eyebrows.

“I--” Lucinda starts, and then stays frozen, searches Twin Seagull--for a gun, for a motive, for any hint of what’s coming next.

“I’m not gonna shoot you,” Twin Seagull says, low. “I want out. I want back home. I wanna see my mother again, wanna have Head Vulture punch me in the shoulder and give me shit. I don’t want to do this anymore.” She starts walking again. “But just taking me at face value is a dumbshit move, Little Bird.”

“It’s Ravenshrike,” Lucinda corrects.

“Just gonna claim it right out of the gate, huh?” Twin Seagull laughs. She scuffs her hand across the top of Lucinda’s head again, and Lucinda snorts.

“No point in keeping it under wraps. If you’re gonna avoid talking to me for the next three days, I’d like to just get it started already.”

“That happen a lot?” Twin Seagull asks, laughs.

“More than once,” Lucinda agrees. Twin Seagull turns down an alley, and Lucinda follows without complaint as they continue on in the shadows.

“Who all’s still alive?”

“Poorwill came back to Matamoros with me and Siri, Woodpecker and Swallow were...different sorts of gone. Had a real funeral for Woodpecker, did the best we could for Swallow.”

“And there's still Head Vulture, Owl-Eagle...what about Henny?”

“We found her in Red Springs. She’s doing great, leading the people out of Red Springs back to Matamoros.”

“How’s Heady doing with that?”

“Moping,” Lucinda replies, and laughs a little. “She’s been through hell, so I can’t blame her. She walked out of Red Springs four years ago, all by herself. Needs a cane to walk now--”

“The hell did she do to herself?” Twin Seagull asks, pauses as a few women walk by, arm in arm, heads bent together.

“Legionary broke her leg and it healed about as good as you can expect a femur to heal when you’ve got some sticks and garbage.” Lucinda pauses as Twin Seagull beckons her forward and they cross the street, from one alley to another. “I think she's powered mostly by anger anymore.”

“Can’t blame her for that,” Twin Seagull says, soft. “Ain’t it all of us.”

Lucinda grunts, and the two of them continue out of town, silent.

***

Lucinda and Twin Seagull are the last ones back to camp, and it’s a real camp now--Mad Dog and Singer dug a hole to make into a stove, Head Vulture, Drummer, and Burn set up the sleeping mats, Runner is halfway up a nearby tree, rope around her waist, something fiddly in her hands, as she watches for people coming toward them; Aeliana, comforting one twin, Valeria and Tatiana huddled together talking near the fire, the other twin exploring the stomped-down circle of underbrush as Head Vulture carries on a casual conversation with her.

Mad Dog holds up a tinfoil-wrapped packet of sliced vegetables to Lucinda, then another one to Twin Seagull, all without a word.

“Hell, should I have brought my scarf along?” Twin Seagull asks, nods at the scarf-sling Lucinda’s vulture has abandoned to pester Head Vulture’s vulture, then to Mad Dog’s scarf-belt. “Make it a whole party.”

“They’re a lot handier than I think the boys meant for them to be,” Mad Dog shrugs, pulls a face, says it like a suggestion as she sizes Twin Seagull up.

“Look damn intimidating,” Lucinda says, tucks into her vegetables, stabs each one with the point of her still-bloody bowie knife instead of digging for a fork.

“Says the woman who carries around a bird in hers.” Mad Dog snorts.

“I got some use out of it when I needed to look scary,” Lucinda says, and falls silent as she horfs down the vegetables as fast as she can, wipes her knife on her pants leg again, and then does her best to fold the tinfoil up neatly, hand it back to Mad Dog.

“Lucia?” Aeliana calls, loud enough to be heard over the twenty feet between them and Mad Dog and Twin Seagull settling in next to each other to talk. “Can we go--” She waves her hand out into the dark woods.

Lucinda nods, scrambles to her feet, follows Aeliana out into the woods, only five or six yards from the rest of the camp. Valeria and Head Vulture and Drummer watch them go.

“What did you do?” Aeliana asks, keeps herself facing out into the dark, casts her eyes over to look at Lucinda.

“I killed him,” Lucinda says. 

“Why?” Aeliana asks.

“Because what else was there to do with him?” Lucinda asks, edge of desperation in her voice. She rubs her palms against her pockets, the seams of her jeans. “After--after three years of it, of more if he’d had the chance, I couldn’t just--” Her voice rises, and she cuts herself off. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”

“I know, I know,” Aeliana says, reaches out to put one hand on Lucinda’s shoulder. Lucinda leans into the touch. “I don’t like it, but I--I know why you did what you did.” She looks back over her shoulder, at Tatiana, who is still huddled with Valeria, though they’re both smiling at some private joke. “Is it--is it a weight off your shoulders too?” she asks, hope in her voice, something desperate and clamoring. “Do you feel free?”

“This wasn’t about me,” Lucinda says, quietly. “I got out when they sent me west. I did this to get all of you out.” She turns to look at Aeliana. “He couldn’t touch me anymore, after I left last time. I wanted you all to--to be safe. To be free. I wanted you to not have to worry about stuff I was doing.”

Aeliana stands, silent, for a long moment ,searches Lucinda’s face. Lucinda looks her in the eye, tries to squash any emotions that are welling up in the back of her throat. She hasn’t cried in front of Aeliana but once, when she was eighteen, and she’s not going to start again now. She’s not. She’s not.

Aeliana cries, though, silent tears streaming down her crumpled face as she pulls Lucinda into a tight hug. Aeliana holds her tight, fists her hands in Lucinda’s coat, buries her face in Lucinda’s shoulder, sobs gently. It’s hard to relax into the hug, at first, but it only takes a ten-count before Lucinda caves, wraps her arms around Aeliana.

The two of them rock gently from side to side, until Aeliana pulls away, eyes red and puffy, tear tracks down her face, whole face still crumpled even as she tries to compose herself.

“I--I don’t know what we’re going to do, now,” Aeliana murmurs. her voice catches a little on her tears. “I don’t know where to go from here.”

“Go back to Matamoros, talk to some of the women there. They’ve been doing this sort of thing for centuries. They’ll help you get back on your feet, figure out what you want to do. They’re a good place to start. There’s another girl there, about Valeria’s age, a lot of older women, and now I think a lot of women our ages. That’s a place to start.”

“It is,” Aeliana agrees. “It's a place to start.”

“When--when you get to Matamoros, tell, uh…” Lucinda trails off hesitates, thinks. “Ask for Henny, Twin Seagull will know who she is, and tell her about everything that you did for me. She’ll treat you like family.”

“I will,” Aeliana agrees. “I will. I’ll remember.” Aeliana moves her hand up to Lucinda’s cheek, pushes a strand of Lucinda’s hair back behind her ear. It immediately slips forward again. “You do what you need to. Make us proud.”

“I will,” Lucinda replies, and presses Aeliana’s hand to her cheek, and smiles.

***

“You want a send-off?” Head Vulture asks. She picks her hands up off Twin Seagull’s shoulders, turns her face one way, then the other, and Twin Seagull smiles.

“Gimme a send-off,” Twin Seagull agrees. “Make it a good one.”

“Little Bird, get over here, we gotta sing,” Head Vulture calls, and Lucinda sighs loudly, makes a show of rolling her eyes and setting down her pack, before she comes over, smiling. “Alright, c’mon, let’s circle up.” Head Vulture breaks, puts one hand on Lucinda’s shoulder and leaves the other on Twin Seagull’s. “Alright, here we go, let’s see if you remember this one, either of you.”

Head Vulture takes a deep breath, starts to sing.

“ _On mountain’s barren peak I stand_  
_And cast a wishful eye._  
_To our tribe’s fair and happy land_  
_Where my good friends do lie_.”

She pauses, looks between them.

“You two remember that?” she asks.

“Yeah, I do,” Lucinda agrees.

“Me too.” Twin Seagull nods. 

“Alright, then let’s go.” Head Vulture mirrors Twin Seagull’s nod, and starts in again, this time with Lucinda and Twin Seagull both adding their voices.

“ _On mountain’s barren peak I stand_  
_And cast a wishful eye._  
_To our tribe’s fair and happy land_  
_Where my good friends do lie._

“ _We’ll stem the storm, it won’t be long,_  
_Our tribe’s free walk is nigh._  
_We’ll stem the storm, it won’t be long,_  
_We'll walk it by and by._ ”

“I’ve got the next verse,” Twin Seagull interrupts, and Head Vulture lets go of her shoulder long enough to gesture for her to go ahead. "Alright,

“ _When shall I reach that happy place,_  
_And be forever blest?_  
_When shall I see my mother’s face,_  
_and on her bosom rest?_

“ _You’ll stem the storm, it won’t be long_  
_Our tribe’s free walk is nigh._  
_You’ll stem the storm, it won’t be long,_  
_We’ll walk it by and by._ ”

They’re all three quiet for a moment.

“A damn good verse,” Head Vulture says, voice just a little strangled.

“Thanks,” Twin Seagull says, wipes at her eyes. “See you both in a few months?”

“Swear it on the lightning in my veins,” Head Vulture says. “You’ll see us at the end of all of this, even if it’s just ‘cause I gotta come back and bother Henny more.” Head Vulture cracks a grin, shakes Twin Seagull a little. “You oughta get on the road.”

“Yeah.” Twin Seagull pulls away. “Both of you, keep safe.”

“You too,” Lucinda says, nods. “Take care of them for me.”

“You got it, Little Bird,” Twin Seagull agrees, and winks.


	15. 179 (Christian Warfare)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 15: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIWKhNg_QOo).
> 
> Warnings for some talk of violence in this chapter.

“What’s the final report?” Caesar asks, settles back in his chair. Vulpes has been in and out for the last week, trying to gather and synthesize the information that caravans, scouts, and frumentarii brought back from both Amarillo and Red Springs. Both went silent, no news, and they’d dispatched radio orders to investigate as soon as possible, but the information has only made its way back now.

Vulpes places the ratty folder full of written reports down on the table.

“Red Springs and Amarillo were both nearly empty upon our arrival. There were signs of a fight in Amarillo, and it was clear a large number of collars were detonated in Red Springs, along with several hundred pounds of explosives.”

“Where were the legionaries?” Caesar demands, flips open the folder and starts skimming.

“Almost all of them were dead. Most from the blast, a significant handful with their throats cut after other, non-fatal injuries.”

“Were there any survivors?”

“No more than two dozen.” Vulpes reaches forward, shuffles through a few more pages of the report to reveal a list of names.

“And their report?”

“Lucia and the group she has built attacked the town, and with help from some of the slaves there, they blew up the supply of explosives in the warehouses.” Vulpes presses his lips together, scowls at the report.

“What slaves?” Caesar starts flipping through the stack of papers, doesn’t pause to look at anything that isn’t a list.

“One of the skilled slaves there has a connection to her tribe. We assume that was her contact.”

“What sort of connection.” Caesar keeps flipping through pages.

“They were part of the same group, so likely they knew each other well.” Vulpes’s voice is tight, careful. 

“Were they in contact before this, or was it a coincidence?”

“A coincidence, according to our knowledge.” Vulpes reaches for a piece of paper Caesar passed up already, picks it up. “However, there are a growing number of slaves traced back to the same group, several of whom she could encounter or has possibly encountered in the past.” Vulpes checks the page. “There is one in particular she may have had prolonged contact with, during the NCR campaign.” He turns the paper around, taps next to the identifier he means. “She’s serving as a priestess at Cactus Springs.”

“And you think she and Lucia have had contact.” Caesar reaches for the paper, and Vulpes hands it over. Caesar squints as he starts to read it.

“We’ve had her under surveillance since Lucia disappears, because they were seen together. She has had some correspondence with others on that list, but none of it suggests she has masterminded an escape plan. Lucia still appears to be a free agent.”

“What's your plan of action?” Caesar as he continues to skim down the list. There are maybe a hundred and fifty names, front and back and another sheet besides, scattered all across the empire.

“Arrest this priestess, keep other members of the tribe under surveillance. There are only a handful that might cause trouble.”

“Do that, then,” Caesar agrees, and sets down the page, picks up another. “What about the other town? Amarillo?”

“No contacts as far as we can tell. The whole town was also...trapped.”

Caesar looks up from under his eyebrows.

“Trapped,” he says.

“Trapped,” Vulpes agrees. “Several bear traps, more than a dozen tripwire traps, we left with several dozen minor and major injuries and two deaths.”

“Did you find anyone there to confirm what happened?”

“No one. There were a handful of triggered traps and their clear victims, but all of the soldiers there had been killed outright or imprisoned without food and water.” Vulpes starts to gather the report back up into the folder. “What we put together, we had to figure out from what and who was left.”

“Where were the slaves?”

“Gone. We found tracks heading south, but they disappeared too quickly for us to tell where they were going aside from ‘south’.”

“I want you to hunt them down. They’ll lead us either to those slaves, or to wherever Lucia has a base of operations. Either is valuable.”

“Of course, Lord Caesar.” Vulpes bows. “I’ll dispatch as many as I can to hunt them down there. However…” He trails off, pauses before leaving the room, heading back down to the repurposed-into-a-command-center casino. “There is a high chance she will strike more at other towns under our control. Her current attack patterns have her making her way along our eastern flank, but it’s likely that she will turn west soon. We have a choice to make.”

“Which is?” Caesar prompts, and takes the entire folder before Vulpes can. 

“Do we fortify our towns, or do we spend those same resources to hunt her down? There are a few places she is nearly guaranteed to attack or travel through--Cactus Springs is one of them. Dog Town and New Vegas are also likely. If we could catch her on the road, we could put an end to this soon.”

“Have there been any sightings of her and the others with her? Who _is_ with her?”

“We only have information on a few of them. One of them is another female frumentarii, Nona Virginia--Mad Dog, I believe, was the last name she was using. She was one of Lanius’s slaves until he discarded her. There are a handful of others--we believe there are three from her contubernium, as well as the escaped slave we discussed a while ago. There’s another woman we haven’t identified yet, though she’s been reported in the company of Mad Dog previously.”

“Two female frumentarii?”

“Yes, Lord Caesar.”

Caesar grunts, reopens the folder, starts looking through files.

“I want all of the female frumentarii pulled. Put them on domestic activities. Until Lucia is dealt with, they’re all a liability as far as I’m concerned.”

“Of course, Imperator,” Vulpes agrees.

“And what about the rest of Lucia’s tribe? You mentioned you would put them under watch?”

“Yes, Lord,” Vulpes agrees.

“Crucify them at the first sign of disobedience, unless they’re highly skilled. If they have a skill, cut their tongues and break their legs. Lucius, take notes on this too.”

Lucius jumps into action, writes the order down on a scrap of paper.

“Split your men. Send half of them to hunt Lucia and her group down, send the others to help fortify defenses in likely targets. I’ll have the decani here help with defenses. Lucius, send someone to Lanius to warn him that Lucia and her group may make an approach on his position.”

“Lord, pardon my impudence if you see it as such, but Lanius is going to ignore this order. He won’t fortify his location to guard against her.” Lucius sounds deferential, but Vulpes catches the flinch out of the corner of his eye.

“I still want him informed of developments.” Caesar waves his hand. “Warn him of the carnage she’s caused in other towns. Perhaps that will make him stop and plan.”

“Yes, Lord,” Lucius agrees, and sighs. 

“Do you have a place you plan to start hunting her?” Caesar asks, turns back to Vulpes. “Any indication of where she plans on going next after Red Springs?”

“Dog Town. That was the site of her final confrontation with the agent I sent to keep an eye on her in the Mojave--”

“Where she killed him.”

“--Yes. And with her husband there as well, and her previous history of seeking revenge on the men set to watch her, he seems a likely target.”

“Has a guard been dispatched?” Caesar asks.

“I was waiting for your approval for the distribution of resources. He is a middling officer, at best, and his loss wouldn’t impact our efforts except to a minimal degree.”

“Send the guard, they’ll catch--”

The elevator door slides open with a creak and a groan, and everyone in the room--Caesar, Lucius, Vulpes, the eight guards--all turn to look.

In the doorway, a ragged vexillarius stands, hat askew, dripping with sweat, covered in grime.

“Imperator,” he says, drops to one knee, bows his head. “I bear news. The whore of New Vegas, the traitor, the false prophet of Athena, she was--she was in Dog Town. She killed her husband.”

Vulpes stiffens, and Caesar slowly turns to look at him.

“You’re certain it’s her?” Caesar asks, low, sharp.

“Yes, Lord,” the vexillarius agrees. He looks up, eyes wide and frightened. “There--there was the bird symbol, on the wall, and the man’s other wives were gone with no trace, and two buildings were blown up with Red Springs explosives, and another woman we identified from her tribe was gone too. Another frumentarius.”

Caesar’s eyes drill into the back of Vulpes’s head.

“Has she been apprehended?”

“No, Lord Caesar. We’ve set patrols out on the road, but we--”

“We think they're going off the roads and traveling through the mountains, forests, and wastes to avoid out guards, patrols, and caravans,” Vulpes interjects smoothly. “We’ll expand our search system and capture them.”

“I expect no more deaths or attacks. I want them apprehended and killed in the next three weeks.” Caesar's voice is hard, and the vexillarius swallows, nods desperately. “You’re dismissed.”

“Yes, Imperator. By your will it shall be done.” The vexillarius bows his head again, hits himself in the chest with his fist, and then scrambles to leave as quickly as possible.

“I expect this was nothing more than a momentary, isolated oversight,” Caesar says, voice still low, when the elevator closes behind the vexillarius.

“Yes, my lord. She may be able to move faster than we expected, or our information took longer to reach me than is typical.”

“When did this attack on Dog Town happen?” Caesar asks.

“The fastest he could have gotten here is four days,” Vulpes says. “Lucia is likely traveling at a less grueling pace. We still have time to stop her in the wilderness. I’ll get my men out on the roads, stop her before she can get too close.”

“Do it,” Caesar orders, scowling. “Do not fail in this.”

“By your will shall it be done, Imperator,” Vulpes agrees, and beats his fist on his chest, bows. He trots to the elevator, waits as it grinds back up to the suite.

When he reaches the command center, he goes looking for his seconds, starts handing down orders--for some to comb the mountains, for some to carry fortification orders to towns, for others to see if they can find any more information from the already-hit towns and households, suss out a pattern, pinpoint her next attack.

It’s going to be a long night, with not much to show for it.


	16. 41 (Home In Heaven)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 16: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR_dJ8YtPlI).

Henny doesn’t even stop at the gate, just strides forward, leads her group of fifty or so refugees straight toward the door. Swan and Cardinal and the men all scramble to intercept them, offer help to the handful of people who are flagging now that the end is in sight. Henny pauses to nod to Regina, but doesn’t stop until she can start ushering people into the gymnasium. Birdy tries to stick close.

There’s a wave of people that jump up from their cots, turns to look at the new refugees.

A woman with a tattooed face is the first one to come forward, start directing people more specifically, toward empty beds, toward places to set their things, for places to sit.

Birdy moves off to the side off to the side, just inside the door to the gymnasium, watches the crowd of people move and part and close around the new folks.

There are a few loud yells, some sobbing, a few people holding tightly to each other.

When everyone--or nearly everyone--has a place to sit and a bed, or a promise of one in just a little while, once they can get more set up, the tattooed woman approaches Birdy and Henny.

“If anyone is injured, there’s a doctor who can take a look at you. She might want to see you--” she nods at Birdy, “--anyway, with the toddler.”

“I’ll go see her,” Birdy agrees, sets her toddler down, holds her hand, and the two of them walk, slowly, out of the gymnasium.

She meets Siri in the hallway.

Siri stops cold, eyes wide, mouth open, and the dog behind her stops too. She’s carrying her leather doctor’s bag, and stares at Birdy.

“Doc?” Birdy asks, voice small.

“Birdy? How--you’re in from Red Springs.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and lets herself smile. Doc looks good--well fed, her shoulders square, uninjured, clean, like she’s slept more than a couple hours in the last few days. “I saw the Boss and Runner and Drummer and Burn and a couple other people, and they--” She freezes. Can she talk about what happened? Can she explain it? “They got some of us out,” she finally settles on.

“How are you?” Siri asks, casts around for a place to set her things down.

“I’m good. Should I--should we go back to the clinic?” 

“I’m going to check in with Calidia and whoever brought all of you here--”

“Henny and Old Eagle,” Birdy supplies.

“Those two, and see if there’s anyone else who needs treatment. The clinic is down the hall, keep going past the front doors, it’s just a little ways down. You should be able to find it easily enough. You may want to wait in the hall until I get back, I don’t have everything in there infant-proofed.” Siri grins, and it reaches her eyes. “I’ll be down in just a few minutes.”

“Alright,” Birdy agrees, and steps aside so Siri can get into the gymnasium.

She follows Siri’s instructions, but sits inside the clinic instead, in one of the plastic school chairs that ring a third of the room. Her daughter crawls across the floor, finally starts climbing up into one of the chairs. Birdy watches,but doesn’t move to stop her, just takes the time to relax into the chair.

It’s weird to be alone again.

There had been that week after she and Dredge had gotten separated, but then she’d been brought back in and hasn’t been away from other people for more than a few minutes since then.

She leans back and closes her eyes, takes stock of just how tired she is.

“Do I hear a baby?” Someone asks, from somewhere behind the two screens Birdy can see from her chair.

“She’s almost one,” Birdy responds.

“Can I see her?” the voice asks. 

“Sure,” Birdy agrees, and stands, and picks her daughter up off the chair she has conquered, carries her through the center of the room--past an exam table and a clean countertop, past two different room dividers--and into the last third of the room, with its six beds pushed up against the walls. There's one woman there, sitting up with a book next to her. Birdy can see she only has one leg, but she’s beaming, looks healthy, and there’s a pair of crutches leaning against the table, and she seems thrilled at the idea of a baby. Birdy brings her over.

“What’s her name?” the woman asks, reaches out. “How old is she?”

“She’s almost a year. Her name is June.” Birdy sets down the baby on the bed, and the baby crawls over to the woman.

“You know, Calidia said that's her mother's name. Oh! You wouldn't know Cal, you’re new around here, right? Where are you from?”

“Red Springs,” Birdy says, and sits down on the bed next to the woman’s. “We just got in.”

“No injuries?” the woman asks, raises her eyebrows when she looks at Birdy.

“A few twisted ankles and things like that, but nothing too bad.”

“I got bit by a nightstalker.” She pats the bed where her thigh would be, if she had one. “Was only a couple days away, they had to send Siri to rescue me.” She laughs. “Getting the hang of getting around now, though. Good that you all got out without too much hurt.” The woman picks up June, who immediately yells until the woman sets her down. “I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Martina.” She leans over, holds out her hand as far as she can. Birdy leans forward to take it.

“Birdy,” she says. “I knew, uh, Lucia, before this. I was part of her group.”

“Long ways from where you were,” Martina says, drops Birdy’s hand, gives her a sad look. “You have folks to get back to after this?”

“I don’t know,” Birdy says. “I hope so.” 

“I do too. Hope there’s anything left to go back to.” Maritna looks away, pushes some of June’s hair out of her face. “I’ve got my sister and I’ve got my son, I guess. That’ll be enough to start.”

Birdy nods, and the three of the msit in silence until Siri comes back, sweeps Birdy and June into the exam room with an apology to Martina.

“Has she been sick at all?” Siri scrambles for a clipboard with a notepad on it, starts writing.

“She’s had a few colds, and she got chicken pox a couple months ago. She’s better now though.”

“A good, healthy baby.” Siri grins. “What about you? How have you been getting on?”

“Alright,” Birdy says, looks away, smiles a little. Siri seems so glad to see her, it's hard to know how to react.

She doesn’t want to talk about the people who _didn’t_ get out.

“Have you been sick at all?” Siri prompts, with raised eyebrows.

“No, nothing, I--I had a cold a few months ago.”

“That’s good!” Siri is nearly beaming, and it just feels more and more uncomfortable. It feels too much like old times, too much like the Boss is gonna round a corner and fix her with that same dead, blank stare like she was doing the mental arithmetic of who would live and die. It didn’t get to her in Red Springs, there were too many other people she knew around, too many other people to pull the Boss’s attention, too much else going on to become her focus.

The Boss isn’t here though, and she keeps reminding herself of that. Here, it's just grandma after grandma, refugee after refugee, Siri working at the counter, grabbing a stethoscope, Martina in the almost-room behind her, grunting as she does something, someone out in the hallway talking and laughing, the general distant sounds of uncoerced people and work.

It’s not what she expected, and it’s already hard to settle in.

“I--I didn’t claim a bed,” she finally says. “I should go do that.”

“Of course,” Siri agrees, serious. “I’ll be around here, if you ever need to or want to talk. You should probably bring your daughter in for a checkup in about a month.”

“Her name is June,” Birdy blurts out. “We named her on the way here. She was someone who died in Red Sprigs when we were trying to escape and--I named her June.”

“It’s a good name, and a pretty name.” Siri smiles, and it’s soft. “You’ll want to go find Amelia, she should be in the middle of everything. Has a really horrendous bowl cut, she’s impossible to miss.” Siri laughs, and it’s a good sound.

Birdy smiles back.

***

Henny moves into the room Head Vulture marked for herself, immediately, leaves the door open. It’s the first look Siri gets at the inside of the room--the door was left closed without Head Vulture here to open it, and they didn't spend much time on the floor before she left.

It’s clean, barren, with only a few pieces of furniture arranged as far apart as possible: a dresser just past where the door opens, a bed against the far back corner, a bedside table next to that, the corner of a desk visible at the foot of the bed.

Henny sits on the bed, coat set aside, staring at the dresser.

Siri stops in the doorway.

“She said she was coming to find me,” Henny finally rasps, after the two of them remain silent for a long minute. ‘“Never thought I’d see here again. Thought I’d die, and it would be just me at the end.” She stands up, smooths down her shirt, spreads her arms out to her sides. “Here I am, willing to help.” She tosses her head, gives Siri a smirk. “You doctor folks?”

“I do.” Siri straightens up a little. This is old ground, at least. “I didn't finish my training, but I’ve made an effort to learn what I can since the Legion destroyed my town and--you know.” She can feel herself deflate. Henny just nods, purses her lips.

“Need chems?” she asks.

“We’re pretty well supplied with a lot of the tribal remedies, we don’t--

 

“Real chems,” Henny interrupts, and when Siri gives her a blank look, she rolls her eyes. “Anesthesia--” she lolls her head back, sticks her tongue out, makes a snoring noise. “Med-X? Buffout? Jet?” She taps her chest with one finger. “Can’t do all of them, but I can do chemistry.”

“There are certainly chems we could do with more of,” Siri agrees, cautious. “Med-X would be useful. There are a few others. I can make a list.”

Henny nods.

“Want to help,” she says. “It’s important to help.”

“It’ll be nice to have someone else to help out around the clinic,” Siri murmurs. “Sometimes it’s a little lonely. Everyone else has their jobs, and mine is so….infrequent. It gets lonely sometimes.”

“You put up with my bad jokes all day,” Henny says, “I need a new audience.” She flashes Siri a grin, and Siri smiles back.

***

Siri realizes she’s attracted a crowd.

Calidia is sprawled across her de facto-claimed bed, talking with Martina, who’s flipping through a pre-war comic book Swan brought her the night before. Martina offers periodic commentary on the comic book. Henny has taken up residence in the waiting room, working out equations on a notepad already covered in someone else's illegible, cramped, definitely-not-English handwriting. Swan wanders back and forth between the waiting room and Martina's bedside, asking about the comic book or bumping shoulders with Henny and talking math, at intervals. Cardinal seems to drop by, look at Siri, say hello, and then leave. Poorwill will show up in the evenings, bottle in hand, and a smile on her face, and whisk whoever is there--usually Siri, Maritna, Calidia, and Henny--off to some different place to drink for the night. 

It feels different from the contubernium, in a good way. Henny and Calidia and Poorwill will periodically wander off, not come back to the clinic for a day or two. Martina doesn't force interaction, but pushes constantly to be allowed out on her crutches, to sit outside on the retaining wall or a deck chair or in the kitchen.

There’s people always in and out, and very few of them demand her entire attention for any stretch of time.

Her dog is getting better at growling when she hears people, and that’s helping too. It’s easy to quiet her with a word and a treat, and then she’ll lay back down, head on her paws, doze off. It’s good.

It’s good.

***

Siri wakes a few hours before dawn, and can’t fall back asleep.

There’s no one in the hall, and next door Martina is snoring gently, as is Calidia, who is as good as moved into the clinic.

She gets up to go wander the halls, her dog not bothering to do more than stretch, sigh, and look after her mournfully as she puts on a pair of ragged sweatpants and steps out of her room.

The kitchen and dining room are both empty, and when she swings past the door of the gymnasium, there’s only one light on, in a corner, and most of the blanketed beds are full. Birdy and her daughter sleep near the front, and they’re both out cold. Martina’s sister is nearby, also asleep.

The lower halls are all dark, except for the bathroom lights, and Siri doesn’t bother to walk down them. No one is awake to keep her company down here, not tonight.

She wanders back up the staircase, first into the eyrie--it’s quiet, this time of night, even the owls not doing much--and then up into the armory.

There’s a sliver of light spilling from between the door and the frame.

She knocks before she enters, and Henny doesn’t turn around, just raises one hand to wave when she hears Siri step into the room. She’s standing at Head Vulture’s workbench, the newspaper emblazoned with DO NOT TOUCH - PROJECT IN PROGRESS tossed aside, a lamp turned on to cast good light on the project in question. Siri slowly approaches, stops to stand at Henny’s elbow. Henny glances over, rubs at her chin, scowls down at the parts scattered across the table.

“Never labels anything,” she sighs, picks up an unlabeled part, turns it back and forth. It’s some sort of circuit board. “Told her to.”

“Are you even supposed to be messing with it?” Siri asks.

“She’s in Colorado, how’s she gonna stop me?” Henny asks, and laughs. She sets the circuit board back down, starts rearranging other things on the table. “Up late?” she asks.

“Woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep,” Siri corrects. She leans against the workbench next to Head Vulture’s, watches Henny rearrange things. 

“No reason?” Henny asks, casually, like she’s curious.

“No reason,” Siri agrees.

“The worst,” Henny says, solemn. She scowls down at the workbench, starts rearranging pieces again. “Need something to do?”

Siri’s eyes go wide, and she raises her hands to stop whatever comes next.

“Oh, I’m no good with--”

“Doesn't matter,” Henny interrupts. “Not asking you to make something.” She holds out a plastic box with open ends. It’s been sanded free of paint, though it looks faintly green. “Hold this. Ask me questions.” Henny turns back to the workbench, starts putting connectors together.

“Where are you from?” Siri asks.

“Kansas. Born Reaver.” Henny straightens her back, inclines her chin. “Left for curiosity.”

“How did you meet Head Vulture?” Siri asks, adjusts the plastic box in her hands. Her palms are sweating, god it’s humid tonight.

“Grew together. Irritating little kid.” Henny heaves an overdramatic sigh, rolls her eyes. “She proposed. We left a month or two later.”

“Was she always the way she is now?” Siri asks, and freezes for a moment when Henny laughs.

“Grew into it. Didn’t learn to be loud until she was in her twenties. Better for it.”

Siri hesitates a long minute, lets the gulf of silence between them grow. Henny grunts as she sets two pieces together, so that they take up the least amount of room.

“What was--Lucy? Raven? What was she like, before the Legion?”

“Good kid.” Henny snorts, laughs. “Spoiled. Never very many kids. Treasure the ones we get.” Henny twists something, and something else clicks into place, and she holds it up, beams, shows it to Siri, who gives her a vacant smile and a nod. “You? Brother, sister?”

Siri ducks her head, glances up.

“No, just me and my parents and my grandmother.”

“Grandmother!” Henny exclaims. “What sort?”

“She enjoyed knitting and matchmaking.”

“Swan, yes?” Henny asks, and then laughs. Siri can’t help but laugh with her, imagines her grandmother in Swan’s place--maybe with her hair shaved short the same way, the same silent insistence on helping, the ever-growing list of things she’s made with her own hands.

“A lot like Swan,” she agrees, and takes a moment to imagine Swan and her own grandmother sitting on the deck chairs out front, gossiping and knitting and sewing.

“Only three types of grandmothers,” Henny says, reaches for a screwdriver from a paint-splattered plastic cup full of still-long pencils, a drawing compass, two screwdrivers, and what she thinks-- _thinks_ \--is an allen wrench. She turns the screwdriver in her hand, raises her eyebrows, points it at Siri. “My wife, Amelia, and Swan.”

“Which one is Regina?” Siri asks, dares to rest an elbow on the workbench.

“Swan,” Henny replies without missing a beat, goes back to her circuit boards. She screw two pieces of unlabeled plastic together..

“Cardinal?”

“My wife.”

“Poorwill?”

“Amelia.”

“You?”

“My wife.” Henny laughs, something chest-deep and joyful. “Only stay married this long by letting it rub off on you.”

“Pardon me if this doesn’t have an answer, but--what about--about Lucy? Little Raven?”

“Ooh, hard one.” Henny chews on her bottom lip, squints at the next piece of plastic to add to her construction. “At thirteen? Grown up like my wife. Now? Mmm.” Henny starts screwing two pieces together. “Swan.”

Siri lets that hang for a minute, considers.

“Why?” She finally asks.

“Likes things _her_ way, no one else’s. No sin, just the way she is.”

“I never saw that,” Siri offers, watches Henny carefully to see how she reacts to contradiction.

“Likes control,” Henny says. “Just a shade of things being the way she likes them.” She grunts as she stretches to get another piece from the back of the bench. “Not great in a Raven, but it happens. Take all sorts, get all sorts.” She slots a couple pieces together, turns it to look at all its sides. “Chassis?” she asks, holds out her hand. Siri hands over the plastic box. Henny tries to slide the screwed-together internals into it, finds a nub that sticks out so the internals don’t slot easily. She pulls the pieces apart, starts to turn them.

Siri watches her, watches the way she keeps trying--turns it a quarter of the way, tries again, turns it another quarter, tries again, sets the chassis down, starts taking apart the internals to rearrange them.

“Your voice,” Siri finally says. “Is it something I could help with?”

“Chemical accident at fifteen,” Henny says, absentmindedly, as she takes the screwdriver to a screw. “Unless you do throat surgery, no.” She smirks a little, glances over at Siri. “Thanks, though.”

“I just thought I’d offer,” Siri says, and nods.

They stand in silence for a few seconds more, and then there’s the _crack_ of the front door slamming open. Siri cringes away, feels her heart catch in her throat, grips the edge of the workbench so tight her knuckles go pale. Henny tosses her project away, casts one glance at Siri, and then goes immediately for the keyring outside the door, comes back and unlocks a laser rifle and the ammunition cabinet.

“Close the door,” she orders Siri, points first at Siri, then swings her arm toward the door. Siri obeys, quickly, presses her back to the door as she hears one loud set of footsteps in the hallway--like whoever is there is trying to be heard. There’s some yelling, but she doesn’t know the voice. It’s a woman, but--”You stay here.” Henny points to the corner of the room filled with guns, then tosses Siri the keys. Siri catches them automatically as Henny brushes past her, loading an energy cell into the laser rifle. “Lock the door.”

Henyn closes the door behind herself, and Siri hears her dog start barking.

There’s some more yelling from the voice Siri doesn’t know, the sound of birds the floor below disturbed and upset, then a lot more footsteps all at once, and no more yelling.

There is no sound of anyone firing any sort of gun, and no sound of any other violence.

She stays in the corner--sitting on the floor, the wooden rack digging into her spine, trying to keep her breathing slow and even and not give in to the panic.

Henny has a laser rifle.

Poorwill has her shotgun.

Others almost certainly have their own weapons.

There’s a whole nearly-hundred people in the gymnasium, someone has to be good in a fight.

Things are quiet for a long, long time.

She can hear someone coming up the stairs, and she moves behind one of the workbenches in a mad scramble to hide.

It’s Henny who opens the door, still holding the laser rifle, though Siri can see it's been unloaded.

“One of ours, come back,” Henny says, doesn’t look for Siri, just goes to replace her rifle and ammunition. “Two women, a girl Birdy’s age, two small children. Need some blisters, cuts treated. Could use you.”

“They're safe?”

“Ours has bad news,” Henny replies, lets her hand rest on the door of the ammo cupboard. “Not sure what, yet. Wanted others around.”

“I’ll go see to the others,” Siri murmurs, gets up. Henny nods, leads the way out of the room and back down the stairs.

There’s a woman standing in the hallway, in a coat Siri recognizes--it looks like Lucy’s big leather coat, with a little more wear-and-tear. She’s nursing a canteen, watching older women trickle up the stairs.

A few people start to trickle in from the gymnasium too--Calidia at the forefront, a handful of others Siri doesn’t know behind her. Poorwill ushers newcomers into the dining room, though she lets the woman in the coat stay in the hall.

“I was told there were people who needed medical attention?” Siri says, interrupts Coat Woman’s silent watching.

“You’re the doctor?” Coat Woman asks, snaps out of her reverie instantly. She’s sharp, curious, engaged. She’s only a couple years older than Siri, at the most. “I left them in the kitchen, let them get something in them first. We had a long run.” She gives Siri a smile that’s almost--apologetic. That’s new.

“I am the doctor,” Siri agrees. “What’s your name?” Better to ask now than three months down the line, when she realizes she needs it.

“Twin Seagull,” Twin Seagull says, holds out one hand for Siri to shake. Siri shakes it, quick, perfunctory, then lets go. Down the clinic hall, her dog is still barking. “Little Bird sent us back here, told me I’d find you. Siri, right?”

Siri nods, and Twin Seagull beams at her. 

“It’s good to meet you. I’d, uh.” She points at the dining room, which is filling up quickly. “I’d better go spread the bad news.”

“What is it?” Siri asks. Please don’t be--

“The Legion is about three days behind us. Two contubernia, when I checked last.” She keeps talking, and Siri hears something about “caught one” and “more guns here," but--

They're coming.

They’re coming.

They’re coming _here_.

They’re coming here, not through her stupid letter to someone untrustworthy, but because--because someone else led them here.

It’s not her fault, but it doesn’t change what’s going to happen.

“Hey,” Poorwill murmurs, and Siri snaps out of it, realizes Twin Seagull is in the dining room, talking to people already. “Lost you there for a minute. Bad news, sure as hell.” Poorwill nods, watches Siri’s face closely.

“I should--I should go help.”

“Best way to distract yourself,” Poorwill says, still quiet. “I’ll come with.”

Poorwill leads the way to the kitchen, and Siri trails behind.


	17. 370 (Monroe)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 17: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kyF8NBbtz4).

There are three women in the kitchen, all of them drinking from chipped glasses. There are two children, too--two girls, twins, not quite five years old--sitting on the counters, eating an apple each.

“I’m the doctor,” Siri says, by way of introduction. “I was told you needed assistance?”

“The girls have blisters,” the oldest woman says. She looks around Calidia’s age--maybe a little older. “And Tatiana--” she nods to the next-oldest woman, “--twisted her ankle yesterday.”

“Tried to tie it up best I could,” Tatiana says, shrugs. It looks like an apology. “Still hurts, though.”

“Have all of you eaten?” Poorwill asks.

“We haven’t,” says the third woman--the youngest one, the one who looks Birdy’s age. She reaches for one of the little girls, scoops her up. 

“I’ll cook you something,” Poorwill says, gestures toward the door. “You all get down to the clinic, I’ll bring you all, uh.” Poorwill pauses, looks out the window. It’s still dark out, not even a hint of dawn. “Breakfast, I guess. Eggs?”

“Yes, please,” the oldest woman says, and gives Poorwill a tight smile as she scoops up the other little girl, who drapes sleepily across her shoulder.

Siri leads them down to the clinic, tries to ignore the sounds of continued discussion in the dining room.

“What are your names?” she asks over her shoulder.

“Valeria,” says the youngest woman. “And this is Tullia.” She hefts the child in her arms, who seems to have flagged immediately when picked up, and is now draped softly over Valeria’s shoulder, the same way the other girl is on--

“Aeliana,” the oldest woman says. “I had another name, once. This is Valentina.” Her own child grunts out a whine, and Aeliana gently shushes her.

“Tatiana,” says the last woman, and she has a severe limp. Hopefully immobilizing it, some painkillers, getting her off her feet for a few days, will help enough.

“My name is Siri. I--”

“Lucia mentioned you,” Valeria interrupts. “By name.”

“She said you were Legion once, too,” Tatiana agrees.

“That you both escaped together,” Aeliana finishes.

Siri turns to look at them, brows furrowed, mouth open. The women are quiet for a moment before Aeliana giggles.

“She spoke very highly of you,” she says. “We all looked forward to meeting you.”

“You--all?” Siri manages to choke out, looks between the three women. “I--we should get all of you sitting down. You’ve been on your feet all day.”

She can feel her face burning, and the devious look in Tatiana’s eye suggests she can tell Siri is blushing too. Aeliana looks away to fuss over a suddenly-grumbling child, and Siri quickly walks them past her bedroom door--her dog is still barking, though the intensity is lowering as time goes on--and into the clinic.

The three women scatter into separate chairs, and Aeliana and Valeria set their twins down on their own chairs. Both the little girls curl up and whine wordlessly.

“Tatiana, I’ll take care of your ankle first. You can take your shoes off while I get my things.”

Siri goes to her cupboard in the middle section of the clinic, digs out her compression bandages and a bottle of tablets Henny had sworn by.

Tatiana has her one foot bare when Siri comes back, and Valeria and Aeliana are wrestling the shoes off the little girls, who both flail and continue to whine.

“How long can we stay here?” Valeria asks, as Siri drops to one knee, begins wrapping Tatiana’s offered foot.

“As long--” Siri pauses, hesitates in her wrapping as she considers her words. 

No one gave them a speech. 

No one else has sat down with them, no one else has welcomed them. Poorwill is cooking them a breakfast, and then they'll go lay down to sleep in the gymnasium, and tomorrow they’ll get up and mill around the same way everyone here does, but until this moment--this moment where she’s kneeling, helping, ready to check over everyone, try to get them healthy again, no one has told them enough. Maybe hasn’t told them anything. She’s the first one. She’s the welcoming committee. 

She just remembers Poorwill in her shack, the two of them talking while Lucy sat outside and smoked. _If you don't feel safe, you're the priority._

“As long as you want,” Siri says. “There’s always a place for people here.” She smiles at each of them in turn. “Your safety is their priority, even if they won’t say so.”

“Tactful, are they?” Aeliana asks.

“Most of the time,” Siri agrees. “I’ve seen one or two shouting matches, but no one has come to blows yet.”

“From Lucia’s stories, I’m sure they will eventually.” Aeliana snorts, but she’s smiling.

“We’re all old,” Poorwill says from the doorway, bearing a tray covered in plates--Siri can see eggs, toast, some sort of fruit, when she glances up. “Don’t have the muscle mass to beat each other up anymore.”

Tatiana laughs, bright and clear and maybe the most reassuring thing Siri has heard all night. Poorwill grins back at her.

“Who wants breakfast first?” she asks, picks up two loaded plates.

“The girls, they’re about ready to just fall asleep.” Aeliana says, half-stands to take the plates and pass them to the twins, who grab the fruit first.

“And then for you three…” Poorwill spins around, scoops up the other three plates, passes them out. “Breakfast. When you’re done, I can show you over to the gymnasium. Cardinal and Amelia are setting up some beds for you.”

“The girls only need one bed.” Aeliana scoops up her egg--they’re all scrambled, no toppings as far as Siri can see--with her toast, crams more than a mouthful in at once. “Can share,” she garbles through eggs and buttered toast.

Poorwill closes her eyes, tips her head back, waves her hand in a lazy dismissal.

“We have the extra beds. We can fit another hundred people in that gym before we have to start parceling out bedrooms again.” She tips her chin back down, opens her eyes, puts her hands on her hips. She grins at the three women--all of them with their mouths full, chewing furiously. “Whatever you all are comfortable with, you can get here. Probably.”

“There’s your foot back,” Siri says, sits back, sets Tatiana’s foot on the floor. “Would you like crutches to help keep the weight off of it?”

Tatiana desperately waves her hands, tries to chew faster.

“No, ‘s fine. Gonna take it easy.”

“Alright.” Siri nods. “Does anyone else have anything else pressing they need looked at?”

“I’d like it if you could look the girls over, see if they’re just healthy in general,” Aeliana murmurs, last bite of toast and eggs in hand. “But that can wait until tomorrow, along with their blisters. For now we just need to sleep.”

“Alright.” Siri smiles up at her. “I sleep in the room next door, if you ever need anything.”

“Thank you. I’ll bring the girls by tomorrow.”

Aeliana finishes the last of her toast, starts gathering the twins up.

“Here are a few painkillers. Don’t take more than two in half a day.” Siri presses the bottle into Tatiana's hand. “If the pain isn’t manageable in a week or so, come talk to me.”

“I will, Doc, don’t worry,” Tatiana reaches out to shake Siri’s hand, and Siri lets her.

Poorwill ushers the five of them out of the room, when they’ve cleaned their plates, and Siri takes the dishes back to the kitchen, leaves them in the kitchen before she goes back to her bedroom.

In the dining room, they’re still talking.

***

Twin Seagull shows up a little after dawn, haggard and clearly short on sleep, and settles on Siri’s exam table. She has a bandage wrapped around her left hand--how did Siri miss it last night?--that she unwraps as Siri digs out her rubbing alcohol and suture kit.

“What are you going to do?” Twin Seagull asks, curls and uncurls her fist as Siri threads her needle. 

“I’m going to stay here and do my job. I’ll patch up anyone who needs it. I don’t know what else I would do.”

Siri doesn’t look up at Twin Seagull. She’s a nice woman, so far. Friendly. A good patient. Attempts to be reassuring. She’s also the bearer of the worst news someone could bring here.

“Not gonna take up arms?” Twin Seagull asks, presses the back of her hand against her thigh, then pins her fingers down with her opposite thumb as Siri approaches with the alcohol.

“Guns make me nervous. I don’t even like being around them when other people use them.” Flush the wound with alcohol--she can see part of a scab loosen, some blood flowing. There’s some debris she can’t identify either, hopefully just more scab. Twin Seagull hisses through her teeth and tips her hand so the alcohol runs into the provided rag.

“Would make it hard to shoot one I guess,” Twin Seagull agrees, gives a pained laugh. There’s more blood now, as the scab pulls apart. “We should be able to take them out without too much trouble, though.” She flexes her hand a little, and Siri flushes it again. Twin Seagull grunts, grinds her teeth hard enough Siri can hear it. “More defensible position, better knowledge of the terrain, better weapons, Henny, Poor--”

“I don’t really want to talk about this,” Siri interrupts, feels her heart leap into her throat. In the corner, her dog shifts on the dog bed Swan had sewn her one day in a fit of boredom. “I spent almost four years as a slave and I don’t want to think about it any more than I have to.”

“Sorry,” Twin Seagull says, and the two of them lapse into silence.

***

Birdy and June are sitting on one of the spare beds, an assortment of toys scattered around them. Calidia sits on Martina’s bed, the two of them jammed shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. Henny sits on another bed, working out a math problem on her pad of paper, pieces of the project from the armor next to her.

“What’s her name?” Calidia asks, when June shrieks in delight over a toy Birdy hands to her.

“June,” Birdy says. “She was a lady in Red Springs. I liked her.”

“You know, that’s my mother’s name, too,” Calidia murmurs, stretches, sighs.

Siri can see the look Birdy gives Henny, when she glances up from her supply rearranging.

“She--” Birdy starts.

“Didn’t make it,” Henny interrupts, brusque, plain. “Too injured by the explosion. We eased her passing. Couldn’t have saved her.”

The silence slowly fills the room.

“She--” Calidia starts, then stops. Siri looks up again, can see Calidia sitting upright, Martina’s hand on her arm. Calidia is turned toward Henny.

The silence stretches longer.

“She died trying to help,” Henny says. “We set off explosives to level the town, and it knocked a radio box off a pole.”

Calidia presses her hands over her face, tucks her knees up. Her voice is slow, careful, the edge of a sob in it.

“Did she die in a collar?” she asks.

“She died free,” Henny replies, and Siri can hear the shuffle of cloth on cloth has Henny rearranges. “Died helping.”

“She got that, at least.” Calidia doesn't make another sound, after that, doesn't move, just sits with her hands over her face, takes a few deep, shuddering breaths.

No one else moves either, and Siri crouches as quietly as she can to look at the second-to-bottom shelf in her cabinet.

“I’m going for a walk,” Calidia finally says. “I don’t need company. I’ll be back...” She trails off as she stands, walks toward the door. She stops near the doorway, where Siri can’t see her anymore. “I’ll be back later,” she finishes, and heads out into the hall.

There's a long silence, and the bed Henny is sitting on creaks.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Birdy asks.

“Hope so,” Martina says.

“Only if she comes back on her own,” Henny says. “Might just need time to sit and think.”

Siri shuffles a few things around the bottom shelf of the cabinet, loudly, and doesn’t join the group.

***

It’s late evening--Martina dozing after dinner, Birdy gone back to the gymnasium, Henny settled silently on the bed next to Martina's--when Calidia comes back.

Siri is reading in the waiting room, feet tucked up on the chair, when she hears the footsteps coming down the hallway, then turn into the other end of the clinic, stop just inside the doorway.

“It was my fault,” Henny says.

“What was your fault,” Calidia replies, flat. She sounds angry, tired, worn out by fury. Siri grips her book tighter. She can leave the room, if she needs to--she can get out this door without Henny or Calidia or Martina noticing her, and anyway Henny wouldn’t say anything. Henny has that in common with most of the other women here, at least.

“The explosives,” Henny says. Her voice is so quiet Siri wouldn’t be able to hear her if she wasn’t listening. “I set them up. I caused it.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Calidia snaps.

“So it has the right face,” Henny says, low and even. “It was my fault, and I’ll carry it with you.”

“Carry what?” Calidia demands, voice rising. She’s not yelling, yet, but she’s clearly headed that way.

“Two hundred and fifty-seven people died,” Henny says, a little louder. Siri doesn’t have to strain to hear her say it. “And every one of those is my fault. Grieve together. Fewer for each of us.”

There’s a silence that stretches between them.

“You don’t have to do it alone,” Henny says, softer again.

“What tribe do I have to grieve with me?” Calidia asks, voice cracking on “with.” “Who here knows them? Who else can mourn for them?” Her voice breaks on “mourn,” and Siri can hear her continue to cry after--soft hiccups, a few wet snorts, but no more words. “My husband, my daughters, my father, my mother, my sisters, my brothers, every one of them is _gone_. Who’s going to mourn?

“Two dozen old bats, off the top of my head,” Henny replies, and Siri can hear the smile in it. “No one here untouched by it. Call you family, carry the burden.”

There’s a long silence, and Siri feels the start of a cramp in her hand from holding her book so tight.

“I’ll think about it,” Calidia says.

“Would be honored to call you Raven,” Henny says, and Calidia huffs, then makes a wet snort.

“I’ll think about it,” Calidia says again, and there’s the creak of her settling onto her bed next to Martina’s.

Henny gets up and leaves, a minute later, no other words. Siri waits until it’s true dark before she leaves too, as quietly as she can manage.

Calidia, if she hears, doesn’t make any comment.

***

Amelia and Regina help sort people into the basement rooms--most of them are in bedrooms, many of which Siri has never seen opened. There’s a similar number in the storerooms, only a minority left sitting out in the halls, looking around at each other.

Poorwill pulls Siri aside in the stairwell.

“You gonna be alright down here?” she asks. Her shotgun is on her hip, loaded, and Siri can hear the clack of more plastic shotgun shells in her pockets. “You want a job?” Poorwill asks, and Siri can hear it’s a leading question. 

“Is there one you need me to do?” Siri asks in return.

“We could use someone to run supplies, take care of any injuries we get here. Maybe if you have a few folks you trust to do first aid, we can set ‘em up on the other rooftops?”

Calidia is her first thought, Calidia who didn’t flinch at an amputation, but Calidia has already been armed with a brush gun just like Lucy’s, had taken it with hard eyes and a grim expression, loaded it with the practiced ease of someone who had been doing it for years. The last Siri had seen her, she and Swan were standing, heads together, talking in hushed tones.

“I’ll find a few volunteers,” Siri agrees. Poorwill gives her a steady nod.

Poorwill heads up the stairs, and Siri turns, starts looking over the gathered people.

***

Twin Seagull, Calidia, Henny, and Martina’s sister are all on the roof when Siri joins them. Poorwill, Cardinal, Amelia, and a handful of others are on top of another building--Siri can just barely see them, against the early-morning sun--and a group of refugees whose names Siri doesn’t know, led by a woman Twin Seagull called Old Eagle, are up on another rooftop, further down the road.

There are two other groups that Siri doesn’t know the locations of, spread out in other possible approach directions. The goal is to funnel them right down this street, though--right into the gauntlet of women with guns.

Now, they just wait.

The day is hot, and it’s boring, sitting and waiting. Siri’s dog sits just inside the stairwell, her head on her paws, watching. Siri watches the four on her roof, the silent rapport they all seem to have established immediately.

It’s Twin Seagull who starts the singing, in the middle of the morning. Her voice is low, flat, colorless, but she sings without any heed for anyone else listening, other than to stay quiet enough her voice doesn’t bounce off the building façades. 

“ _Oh tribe, I my gun have taken_ ,  
 _All to leave and defend thee_ ;  
 _Turned once, cruel, despised, forsaken_ ,  
 _You, from now, my all shall be_.

“ _Perish, ev’ry cruel ambition_ ,  
 _All I’d sought or caused or known_ ;  
 _Yet how rich is my condition_ ,  
 _That this tribe is still my own_.”

There’s quiet for a moment, before Henny sings back, her voice rough and breathless as she does her best to carry the same tune.

“ _Let others despise and leave you_ ;  
 _They have left yet others, too_ ;  
 _Human heart and looks assure me_ ;  
 _Thou art not like legion, true_.

“ _And while you take up arms with me_ ,  
 _Hear our wisdom, love and right_ ,  
 _Foes should hate and friends forgive thee_ ;  
 _Bare your face, and give us might_.”

Next to Henny, Calidia snorts softly. Martina’s sister checks the chamber of her gun.

“They took Little Bird back. Can’t do worse than a Shrike,” Henny says, note of finality in the words.

“We had the same job,” Twin Seagull says in reply.

“You kill a Raven?” Henny asks.

“No,” Twin Seagull admits.

“You do more than what was asked?”

“No.”

“You admit it when you did wrong by us?”

“I try.”

“Then you’ll be fine,” Henny says.

They all lapse into silence again.

The first explosion comes sometime in the early afternoon. They ate lunch--quick bites from aluminum compartment trays one of the teenage girls brought up to the roof--at noon, and then went back to wait, and now--

Now they wait with purpose.

***

The first legionary is running--sprinting, down the street, legs flying, no weapon, no one close behind him.

There’s the crack of a gun and he falls, screaming, in a bloody heap.

There's an accompanying whoop from some other roof, and Calidia laughs.

“Should be another few coming through, at least,” Twin Seagull says.”‘No way they took them all out in that explosion or in the street canyon.”

Several more do follow--scattered, spread out, formation broken. Little clouds of dust kick up behind them, where bullets dig into the dirt, never close enough to be a threat--as long as they keep moving.

Calidia takes aim, and there's the single loud crack of a gun, and Siri can see another legionary tumble head over heels before rolling to a bleeding, limp stop.

“Got him in one,” Calidia says, low, vicious, gleeful, and it makes Siri’s stomach lurch, but it leaves something in her chest feeling light, free, too.

“Good shot,” Twin Seagull says, and laughs. “Keep it up and we’ll call you Eagle.”

Calidia laughs too.

Siri leans back against the doorframe, listens to the rest of the shots--it takes seventeen before a silence stretches longer and longer, and people begin to gather themselves up, put their guns away.

Siri goes downstairs, waits to see if anyone comes back with injuries. Her dog stays at her side, and only Henny seems to watch her as things begin to slowly wind back down.

***

There are fourteen legionaries, and Siri does the math--they used barely more than enough bullets. Twin Seagull had disappeared for a couple hours when all the bodies had been collected, their pockets emptied, any tribe they had left that could be recognized found and offered the body.

When all that is done, Old Eagle, Twin Seagull, Calidia, Poorwill, Amelia, Cardinal, and a few of the others carry the bodies out, away from the graveyard and the fields and the building, up to a demolished-roof office building. The floor gives dangerously under Siri’s feet, and she hangs back in the stairwell as the rest of them carry the bodies out into the middle of the room. Most of the rubble has been cleared to the edges, and when the bodies are placed, they gather the two or three skeletons still laid out and scattered from consumption.

She has to stay, just--just to see this through. Just to see the end of it.

She presses herself into a corner, watches the old women work.

It’s the same way Lucy laid out Woodpecker--a few quick cuts, standing back, a four-part song over the bodies as ravens and vultures and what look like hawks and eagles circle down over them.

Most of the Birds just walk away after their song, though Poorwill slows, fixes Siri with a curious look. When Siri doesn’t move to follow, she cocks her head, grunts to get Siri’s attention.

“You know your way home?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Siri agrees, watches a vulture--a turkey vulture, she remembers, from Poorwill’s lesson on the different sorts of birds in the eyrie--rip open a legionary’s belly. An eagle lands and muscles it out of the way with some posturing and hissing. “I’ll--be back later. if I’m not back by dawn, you can come get me.”

“Sure thing.” Poorwill nods. “Keep safe.”

She turns and leaves, and the others do too, and soon Siri stands alone in a room full of bodies and bickering birds, just her dog to keep her company.

It’s long past dark when she finally walks home.


	18. 121 (Florence)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 18: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdbDzgDDKGY)

The town isn’t any bigger or better fortified than when they were here last. There’s still the falling-down building at the end of the main street, the firepit kicked over, the deck chairs long gone.

It’s easy to stay out of sight, hug the ditches and the scrub, keep low.

Owl-Eagle’s little adobe house has a guard, now, though. That’s new, and it doesn’t bode well. he looks bored, at least, like he wants to be somewhere else. He’s staring vacantly at the falling-down building where they had stayed.

“That’s where she’s at?” Head Vulture asks, nods at the hut.

“Yeah,” Runner says, before Lucinda can say anything. “Do we get her out first, and then everyone else after, or everyone all at once?”

“It’s too small to start a rebellion quietly,” Drummer offers. “I’d vote to just take them out all at once.”

“Get a gun to a couple people in town, let them fight too,” Burn agrees. “There was one of them, the woman who watched the kids. Always looked like she was putting a curse on every single legionary she could see.”

“Don’t blame her,” Mad Dog murmurs. “Bunch of low-rank pissing match losers.”

Head Vulture snorts.

“Then let’s go,” Lucinda says, scrambles to her hands and knees. “I’ll get the guns.”

“Head Vulture, Singer, you two stay somewhere safe.” Mad Dog rolls over onto her back, checks her rifle chamber. “Maybe get our priestess friend after we take out her guard.”

“On it,” Head Vulture agrees, draws her crossbow out from under her poncho, cocks it.

“Ravenshrike, you’re with me. Runner, where are you three going?”

“We’ll pincer around from the other direction. Give us a couple hours to arm some folks, and we’ll meet up in the middle of town.”

“Meet you then,” Mad Dog agrees, with a nod.

***

All the kids are asleep, but the woman who watches them is awake as soon as Lucinda pushes aside the tent flap.

“What do you want?” she asks, voice low, rough, bitter.

“You want a gun?” Mad Dog asks, ducks past Lucinda’s arm, and holds out a rifle.

Silence stretches in the tent for a long moment.

“Ain’t a trick?” she asks.

“Not a trick,” Lucinda agrees.

The woman hesitates a moment longer, then grabs the gun from Mad Dog’s hand. Her hands tighten around the stock and barrel, and she watches Lucinda and Mad Dog watch her.

“What are you two doing?” she asks.

“Breaking you out,” Lucinda replies.

“I know you,” the woman says, and narrows her eyes. Lucinda shifts from foot to foot, glances to Mad Dog. “Lucia.”

“That’s me,” Lucinda agrees, slowly.

“Had a problem with you. Still have one,” the woman says, and the silence only hangs between them a moment before she continues. “Surprised they turned on you like they did?”

Lucinda presses her lips together, says nothing, as the woman continues to stare her down.

“No,” Lucinda says.

The woman snorts. She breaks eye contact, looks down at the gun. Her fingers brush across the stock. 

“Not what I’m used to, but it’ll do the job.”

“There aren’t a lot of folks between us and having this town,” Mad Dog says. “And we got a few of our own reinforcements coming from the other direction.”

“They’ve been trying to shuffle men to stop you in your tracks.” The woman checks the chamber, and without a word Lucinda hands over a beat-up cardboard box of ammo. “Hasn’t worked.”

“Means we’re doing our job right,” Mad Dog agrees, smirks. “You got plans for after we bust you out?”

“See if I can find my folks,” the woman says, low, continues to inspect the gun. “Might still be a few of them out there.”

“Which tribe?” Mad Dog asks. 

“Walker,” the woman says, hefts her gun. 

“Heard of a few of ‘em still around.” Mad Dog nods, studies the woman a little more intently. “Oughta be able to find ‘em somewhere.”

The woman grunts, and leads the way out of the tent.

She limps heavily when she walks, and Lucinda can see the twisted ankles, the odd lump on her shin--broken legs, healed wrong. Slow her down, keep her from getting away. So much for _Walker_ , if the Legion had anything to say about it.

Mad Dog scales a building, up a scrap pile behind the building, and settles on the roof. Lucinda and the Walker woman stay in the alley, wait for the long whistle from Mad Dog.

When she whistles, they’re out of the alley--Walker with her gun already up to her shoulder, Lucinda ducking for cover.

There’s the _crack_ of a nearby suppressed rifle, and the _thump_ of a body hitting the ground, and Mad Dog whistles from the roof again.

For a long, pregnant second there’s no noise but the crickets, and then Lucinda levels her gun at another legionary, who’s turned to look at his now-fallen companion.

He looks up at Lucinda, eyes wide.

“ _Ave_ ,” she snarls, and fires.

_Boom_ , lever down, case ejected, lever up.

***

Walker goes back to the tent full of children, Singer and Runner close behind to help wrangle them. Drummer, Burn, and Mad Dog do a circuit of the town, guns in hand, to check for anyone left in any buildings, or tents, or culverts, and then circle back to the office, where the last three legionaries--no-name, no-rank barely-adults--have been locked in.

Lucinda and Head Vulture head for Owl-Eagle’s adobe.

Owl-Eagle sees them coming, steps out into the street--she’s smaller than Lucinda remembers, even though it’s been less than a year. She seems more shrunken, more compacted, sharper.

Head Vulture beelines for her, and the two of them grab each other in hugs.

They rock together for a moment--Owl-Eagle comes up to the middle of Head Vulture’s chest, and Head Vulture scrubs the back of Owl-Eagle’s head with one hand--and when they pull apart, Head Vulture laughs.

“I can’t believe you're still alive, you old hag,” she says, laughs louder, grins wider.

“Who are you calling _old_ ,” Owl-Eagle scolds, pulls away to cross her arms for just a moment before she laughs too. “You look good. Cane?”

“Kid thought it’d be fun to break my leg.” Head Vulture bares her teeth, grimaces. “Makes me feel old.”

“You are old,” Owl-Eagle replies. “Pushing seventy, aren’t you?”

“Henny’s seventy, so, yeah.” Head Vulture is more sober, twiddles her cane in her hands. “Getting too old for this shit.”

“Aren’t we all,” Owl-Eagle agrees, and she studies Head Vulture as Head Vulture studies her back. They stand in observatory silence for a moment longer. “You can go inside and sit down. I’ll make dinner when all of you can come in and sit down.”

“Thanks,” Head Vulture says, softly, and it’s the first time Lucinda can remember hearing that much exhaustion in her voice. She’s tired so often--she’s old, walks slow, doesn’t sleep through the night any better than the rest of them--but she’s never sounded so bone tired. never sounded like she’s ready to sit down and not get back up. Never sounded like she’s flirting with being seventy years old and still not a ghoul.

Head Vulture turns and goes inside, and Owl-Eagle turns to Lucinda.

Owl-Eagle looks her over, considers the birds that have come to land in front of Lucinda.

They stand in unbroken silence.

“Two ravens,” Owl-Eagle finally says.

“Two ravens,” Lucinda agrees.

“Which one?” Owl-Eagle asks, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.

“The other Little Raven,” Lucinda says, can’t look at Owl-Eagle.

Owl-Eagle sighs.

“And your name?”

“Ravenshrike.”

Owl-Eagle grunts.

“I’ll eat with you, but we’re not tribe anymore.”

It hurts more than it should. 

“You're not my Raven, and there’s nothing you can do to gain that again. It’s good you did your penance, but that’s not a sin you can wash away with a bird and some deaths.”

Lucinda bites her lower lip, tries to focus on the sting instead of the tears pricking in the corners of her eyes.

“Where’s Siri?” Owl-Eagle finishes, her voice soft, curious.

Lucinda takes one breath, tries to keep it from shaking, tries to keep her composure.

“She’s back at h--Matamoros. She’s safe. She and Poorwill were really friendly with each other.”

“What about the others?”

“Woodpecker was feral, the others were just gone.” This is easier. These are facts. There is no disapproval here.

“What did you do for her?”

“Gave her a funeral.”

“That’s good. Who’s at Matamoros?” 

“Most of them i remember. I--i don’t remember everyone from before. There’s not anyone new, though. Head Vulture could tell you better. She’s been there for a few years.”

She dares a look up at Owl-Eagle, who’s looking down the street at the moving forms of Mad Dog and some woman Lucinda vaguely recognizes from their time in the town. That makes it easier.

“You can go inside, too. I’ll wait out here until the rest of them are done.”

The adobe is still small, still crowded, and Head Vulture has already taken the closest seat to the door, her crossbow still on her lap, but not drawn.

“You think she'll let me sleep in her bed?” Head Vulture asks, and takes a drink from her canteen.

Lucinda doesn’t even have a chance to open her mouth before Owl-Eagle calls back, “You’re a married woman, Techie, for shame!”

“Aw, c’mon, babe, Henny doesn’t have to know!” Head Vulture returns.

“I’m telling your wife!”

Both of them dissolve into laughter, and Owl-Eagle turns around, leans in the doorway.

The continue to exchange jokes until the rest of the team returns, slaves and wives trickling behind them. Mad Dog and Singer retreat into the back room, and Drummer, Runner, and Burn go over to the house to look for the deck chairs.

Owl-Eagle and Head Vulture direct people, talk over options--leave to the east, leave to where they came from, leave to Matamoros-- and it’s late into the night by the time the last group leaves. Owl-Eagle gathered a few ingredients, gets to work over the clay stove in the corner.

The rest of the team gathers in the front room, talks among themselves as they wait.

***

“How are they all?” Owl-Eagle asks. Lucinda rolls over on her bedroll, toward Owl-Eagle’s voice across the street.

“Found Henny in Red Springs. She looks better than me, thank god.” Head Vulture’s voice is low, quiet. Lucinda opens her eyes to look at them--they won’t notice her, over here, and it’s not like they’d care anyway. There are two pinpricks of red light in front of them, visible even in the moonlight-bleached starkness. “Rest of ‘em are...same as always, I guess. Regina’s getting more forgetful every year, Poorwill’s as twitchy around men as ever, Amelia still doesn’t like changes even when she pretends it doesn’t bother her. Lost Joan the year after I got back, but she’d been senile for half a decade, and they were glad for an end to it.” They’re both quiet a moment, and Head Vulture’s cigarette flares. “We were the first to go, but everyone else was brought in, too, eventually. No one on the road got out. Some of the boys went out to check on the stations, year after, only about half of them were still around. From what Little Bird saw, I doubt more than a handful are still out there.”

“Once all this has died down, we can go out and check.”

“Maybe you can.” Head Vulture sighs. “This is the last I’m walking like this. It’s hell getting up in the morning.”

“We can share the bed,” Owl-Eagle offers. “It’ll be a squeeze, but we can both fit.” There’s a pause, and her cigarette flares. “I call dibs on not being by the wall.”

“You heinous bitch,” Head Vulture says, and laughs. The two of them chuckle, and are quiet for a stretch.

“What about Little Bird?” Owl-Eagle asks.

“We voted to keep her in, but I dunno how long it’ll hold after all of this.” Head Vulture pauses, takes another drag on her cigarette. “Swan acted like she was about ready to hit somebody over it. Didn’t trust Little Bird.” She pauses again. “Still doesn’t, probably.”

“Can’t hold that against her.”

They’re both quiet again.

“I can’t give up on her like that,” Head Vulture says. She sounds tired, again. “Can’t sit back and wash my hands. Not fair, after we voted for this to happen. Not her fault she turned out like this.”

“Not her fault?” Owl-Eagle laughs, hard edged and sharp. “You’ve been gone for four years, so maybe you didn’t hear the rumors.”

“She’s got a vulture and an extra raven, what other rumors am I gonna need to hear?”

“She killed the president of the NCR. She killed whole ranger stations--that’s more than one--full of elite troops. She’s important enough they put her on a coin, even if it was only for a few months. I know she’s tortured people. I’ve heard unconfirmed rumors that she’s killed and _eaten_ people, Techie, and with the rest of that list I’m not so inclined to cast it aside.” 

“I don’t know,” Head Vulture says, quiet, desperate, the end of a conversation. “It’s not--it’s not important right now. What’s important is what we’re doing. That counts for _something_ , the way I figure it.”

“How long are you gonna keep your head in the sand, Techie?” Owl-Eagle asks. She sounds tired too. “How long is it a problem for the future?”

“Long as I can put it off.” Head Vulture laughs, like she's trying to make a joke, but Owl-Eagle doesn't laugh.

“You’ll have to think about what she's become, someday.”

“For now, we have a common goal. Thats enough for me.”

Theyre both quiet a little longer.

“I’m gonna go try to sleep,” Head Vulture says, and there’s a creak as she stands, and heads back inside.

Owl-Eagle stays sitting outside, looks up into the sky, and Lucinda rolls over on her bedroll, bites her tongue to focus on something besides Owl-Eagle’s words rattling around her brain.

***

“We’ll skirt New Vegas as widely as we can manage,” Owl-Eagle stares down into her backpack, sighs out her nose as she rearranges its contents. “If we can make it into the mountains west of the strip, we can hide there until they stop looking, or make it across the whole valley.”

“It’s best to follow the Colorado south, and lose them somewhere in the desert,” Lucinda offers. “We stopped seeing people in New Mexico.”

“The Colorado is a long ways to go, and dangerous to cross anywhere.” Owl-Eagle saws her jaw from side to side, considers the alternatives, eyes focused on something in the middle distance. “If we hide in the mountains, will you come get us when you’re sure you can get us through the Mojave?”

“Sure thing,” Head Vulture agrees, easy, fiddles with something absentmindedly in her pocket as she watches Owl-Eagle. “Woulda expected an Eagle to just charge right through, hope for the best.”

“I’ve cooled off. Seen more of what they’ve done. I think I’ll stack my chances with a little more caution.”

“Suit yourself,” Head Vulture says, throws a disapproving tone behind it, but she’s smiling.

“There are a few maps with old mines marked on them…” Owl-Eagle trails off, turns to her bookshelf, grabs a big cardboard-bound book. She starts flipping through it. “There are a few we could shelter in.”

“There was a town of super mutants there, when I went through,” Lucinda says. “They might still be there.”

“Coulda been routed by the Legion, too,” Mad Dog supplies. “Haven’t had my ear to the ground this far west. Wouldn’t be surprised if they had though.”

“Well, no matter what, the mines are still there.” She snaps her book shut. “We’ll find somewhere to lay low on our way.”

“We gonna sing for you?” Head Vulture asks. She settles into a chair, stretches out her legs.

“Are you?” Owl-Eagle asks back, and raises her eyebrows.

“Wouldn’t be a real trip if we didn’t do it,” Head Vulture replies, grins. Owl-Eagle meets her eyes, and grins too.

***

Head Vulture leads the song, Owl-Eagle wrapped up in a hug, Lucinda standing aside, the rest of the team scattered around the room, along with a few of the people leaving.

“ _Now many years their rounds have rolled_ ,  
 _Each moment brought this nigh_ ,  
 _Ere all its glories stand revealed_ ,  
 _To our admiring eye_.”

Head Vulture pauses for a breath, and Owl-Eagle laughs. Head Vulture gives her half a scowl, and continues.

“ _Ye wheels of nature sped your course_ ,  
 _Ye mortal powers, decayed_ ;  
 _Fast as ye brought that night of death_ ,  
 _Ye bring eternal day_.

“ _Ye weary, heavy-laden souls_ ,  
 _Who are oppressed and sore_ ,  
 _Ye trav’lers through the wilderness_  
 _To that home’s peaceful shore_.  
 _Though chilling winds and beating rains_ ,  
 _The waters deep and cold_ ,  
 _And enemies surrounding you_ ,  
 _Take courage and be bold_.”

Owl-Eagle takes the last verse, cuts Head Vulture off before she can start it.

“ _Though storms and hurricanes arise_ ,  
 _The desert all around_ ,  
 _And nightstalkers they oft appear_ ,  
 _From the enchanted ground_.”

Owl-Eagle has to pause too, to take a breath, and Head Vulture laughs.

Owl-Eagle’s response is to smack her between the shoulderblades with the side of her fist before she continues singing.

“ _Dark nights and clouds and gloomy fear_ ,  
 _And deathclaws often roar_.  
 _But while that homeward call we hear_ ,  
 _We’ll press for that home shore_.”

“Should quit smoking ‘fore you can’t sing,” Head Vulture murmurs, hugs Owl-Eagle tighter.

“Figured it was a safer rebellion than mouthing off until they broke my leg,” Owl-Eagle replies, hugs her back. “You take care, alright?”

“I will,” Head Vulture agrees. “You better get a move on. Gotta get out of here before they notice no radios.”

”You too. Walk fast, walk careful.”

Owl-Eagle and Head Vulture pull apart, and Owl-Eagle pats Head Vulture on the bicep, flashes her another smile. She waves to the others--Mad Dog, Singer, Runner, Burn, Drummer--before she turns and leaves.

She doesn’t acknowledge Lucinda, where she stands in the corner, silent, hands behind her back.


	19. 118 (Stockwood)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for some (brief, reviled) slavery apologism.
> 
> A song for chapter 19: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV7Ha-uHUFg).

There’s a hazy dark line on the horizon. Head Vulture shades her eyes and squints out at it.

“That a road?” she asks, looks to Lucinda, then to Runner.

“We didn’t come this far south,” Runner says. “Could be.”

Lucinda squints and shades her own eyes.

“I can’t tell,” she says.

“Hold on.” Mad Dog swings her rifle around to her front, starts unscrewing the scope. They all wait a moment while she holds it up to her eye, squints. “Doesn’t look like a road,” she says.

“Then what’s it look like?” Drummer asks.

“Craters, maybe? Doesn’t look like it’ll be great to cross. Might be a way around it.” Mad Dog lowers her scope, starts screwing it back onto her rifle. 

“It’s all out in a big line--are you sure it isn’t a road?” Singer asks.

“I mean, might be over a road, but it’s not a road now.”

Head Vulture grunts.

“Guess the only way to tell is to get closer. Unless--hey, Little Bird, we’re pretty close to the Mojave, right?”

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees, chews on her bottom lip as she squints out at the horizon.

“You know where we are on a map?” Head Vulture looks over her shoulder as she starts down the hill.

“It might be one of the--” she pauses, squints out at the dark patch in front of them, then off to the west. “One of the interstates,” she finishes, slower.

“Doesn’t look like a road,” Mad Dog says again, starts following Head Vulture down the hill.

“It’s the Long Fifteen. We should give it a wide berth.”

“Scared of getting caught on it?” Runner asks. She and Burn and Drummer go next.

“No.” Lucinda shakes her head, still standing at the top of the hill, squinting out into the distance.

“Then why not use it?” Mad Dog stumbles over a bit of loose dirt, tumbles back, skids a few feet down the hill on her ass.

“It’s not in great shape. Heard it got hit by some nukes right before the battle at the dam.”

“It did?” Singer asks, and finally starts down the hill. Lucinda watches her go.

“Yeah,” Lucinda says, a little quieter. “Heard it wiped out the NCR supply lines all over. Heard it helped the Legion win the war.”

“Who launched the nukes?” Mad Dog asks, twists to look up at Lucinda. “I wasn’t in the Mojave so I don’t know all the hot gossip.”

“Heard they came out of the Divide.” She finally starts down too, places her feet carefully. Rocks and clods of dirt go skittering away under her feet. “Looked like they were aimed for the Fifteen, not just an accident.”

“There’s nothing in the Divide,” Mad Dog snorts. “Just sandstorms and old-world shit that’s not worth the effort.”

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees, and thinks of the vultures circling above the temple as she and Strix left Ulysses’s body behind.

“Might wanna steer clear of it anyway,” Head Vulture says, loud, ends the discussion. “Could do without the extra radiation. Gonna grow an extra arm if I get much more.”

Mad Dog and Burn laugh.

***

They settle in the hills above the outpost. There’s no fire, they eat their dinners cold, keep their voices low. They're far enough away they shouldn’t be found, in a dip in the rocks, but it’s better to be safe.

Runner and Mad Dog go up over the hills to the east, come back with reports of radscorpions and a long-abandoned gas station. Burn and Drummer range north, find nothing but more hills in their short jaunt. There’s no indication of the Legion nearby, aside from the outpost--which Head Vulture spends her evening watching through Mad Dog’s scope.

Lucinda can still see the statues, heads and shoulders lit up as the sun disappears behind the horizon. They’ve been defaced--an amateur job, but the scrap wood and salvaged cloth did a good job of making them look like legionaries shaking hands. They’re been painted over in red paint, but even that is peeling and starting to rust through in places. It doesn’t look like a professional job--more like something a few people did one night as a joke.

Singer lies on her backpack and reads until everyone returns.

“So what’s the plan from here?” Mad Dog asks, looks around the circle of women, until her eyes land on Lucinda. “You’re the one who’s been here before. Where we headed?”

“Cottonwood Cove, first. Take out whoever is there. Take the ferry up the Colorado in the night, land it a ways down river, sneak into the fort, set up plans there. Move on to New Vegas, kill Caesar and whoever is with him. Then we go back to the fort the same day, lead a slave rebellion, and then we...I dunno.”

The plan lays heavy between them all. No one speaks.

“That won’t clean up the Mojave,” Mad Dog says. “Lots of boys in red still around. Even when you cut off the head, the snake will still move.” She reaches down to start rearranging her things in her backpack, doesn’t look up.

“Those will be an important blow though,” Lucinda says.

“Won’t be enough,” Runner says. “I’m gonna stay here, take more of the bastards out. Not like I’ve got anyone to go back to.” She turns away, spits out into the dark. “Better to die on a machete than sit around feeling bad about it.” 

“I’m staying too,” Burn says. “No one to go back to, and no place to go back to either.”

“So’m I,” Drummer chimes in. “You have a tribe to go back to though. Might be worth taking grandma over there home.”

Head Vulture snorts loudly.

“I can get my damn self home if I have to, I ain’t _that_ fragile.”

“Doubt they’ll have the discipline to stick to patrol routes, after Caesar ends up dead,” Drummer says, and shrugs. “One old woman on the road might not be worth arresting. Might still be worth terrorizing.”

“Made the trip once, I can make it again if I have to.” Head Vulture closes her eyes, shrugs. “Nice to have company, but it ain’t necessary.”

“I’ll come back with you. I should tell Siri what happened out here. Maybe some of the others too.”

“Sure some of them will wanna know the news. Ones we got out especially.” Head Vulture kicks back, rests against her backpack, folds her hands behind her head. “God, it'll be good to see Henny again.”

“Yeah, yeah, you got a wife, we heard,” Mad Dog teases, and Singer gentky kicks her on the knee. Mad Dog and Head Vulture both laugh. Lucinda pets her older raven gently.

***

“Hey, Little Bird.” Head Vulture shakes Lucinda awake. It’s still cool, still before dawn, but the horizon is starting to turn grey. “Was watching the outpost and I saw one of ours.”

“Who?” Lucinda asks, fumbles herself into sitting position.

“Fledgling.” Head Vulture holds out the scope from Mad Dog’s rifle, appropriated overnight into a spyglass. 

“ _She’s_ here?” Lucinda asks, and takes the scope, scrambles over to the rise.

There are five women, out at the well, one filling a bucket, the other four clustered together. Three are older than Lucinda--maybe Calidia’s age, or Old Eagle, none of them as old as Head Vulture--one is near her age--pretty in a plain sort of way, nothing familiar about her in the least--and one a few years younger--Old Eagle’s same nose, same jaw, same dark hair and thick eyebrows and medium-tone skin evident even from up here.

“Yeah,” Head Vulture agrees. “So what do we do?”

“We have to talk to her, right?” Lucinda asks, pulls back from the scope for a moment before putting it back to her eye. Fledgling is furthest from the well pump--maybe she'll stay out here alone long enough to catch?

“Gotta catch her alone first,” Head Vulture replies. 

“That’s gonna be the hard part.”

Lucinda lowers the scope, looks down at the outpost. A couple of the shelled-out cars from the hill have been hauled up and stripped for metal, their frames set aside. There's only one brahmin in the pen, and the mattresses that used to be out in the open are gone. The weeds aren't any more overgrown. A lot of the crates have been taken inside or destroyed, most of the sandbags replaced with newer, cleaner ones. There's a mound, between the barracks and the statues--no markers, nothing, just a place where the dirt is a little higher, looks newer than the other dirt that's been packed down into dried-out hexagons.

Nothing else really looks different from the last time she was here--it’s been two years, now, hasn’t it? Weird that nothing much changed over all that.

Not much reason for it to change, either.

“So how are we gonna do it?” Head Vulture asks.

“Catch her when she’s out alone doing laundry?”

“Catch her when she’s gotta take a piss in the middle of the night,” Head Vulture suggests, and snorts out a laugh.

“They’re all gonna be pissed that we want them to wait.”

“Yeah, but if we can get her out, that’s worth Runner giving me a stink eye all day.”

“You go ask them. I’ll keep watching.” Lucinda raises the scope to her eye again, watches the women mill around, laugh, talk, and fill their buckets.

Head Vulture scrambles back to the camp, shakes Mad Dog awake.

***

Once the sun sets, the people who mill around the outside of the outpost head inside. Drummer and Mad Dog haven’t come back from their foray down to the gas station overrun with radscorpions, and Singer sits on the east side of camp, keeps an eye out for them. Runner and Burn sit huddled together on their stacked bedrolls, talking quietly.

Head Vulture lays on her stomach, watching the outpost buildings. Lucinda lays next to her. 

There’s just the one sodium light over the headquarters entrance, even the spotlight on the statues shot out. No fires in the still-standing barrels, only a little light spilling through the grimy windows from the lanterns, the moon too low behind the hills to offer much light.

“You ready?” Head Vulture murmurs. Her crossbow sits back on her bedroll, and she’s in just her poncho--even her coat is left behind.

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees. Her gun is on her bedroll, too, though she’s still wearing her coat. “Let’s go.”

***

There’s still a stack of crates out behind the headquarters, and they settle down behind it to watch the traffic to and from the pit latrine up against the rocks.

People come and go pretty regularly, don’t look over at the stacks of crates. Lucinda sits where she can see around the crates, and Head Vulture rests with her back against the wall of the headquarters. She’s quiet, but Lucinda can hear her shuffling something between her fingers--a scrap of paper, an NCR dollar, something soft and papery sounding. 

It's on toward midnight when Fledgling finally comes out of the building--rumpled, in a nightdress, her hair french braided, her feet shoved into loud, slappy sandals.

Lucinda gestures for Head Vulture to get up when Fledgling closes the latrine door, and the two of them creep out from behind the crates. Head Vulture stays leaning against them, cane between her knees, while Lucinda stands on the edge of the walkway.

They’re both silent.

It takes Fledgling a moment to notice them, when she comes out of the outhouse, and she freezes and looks between them.

“Fledgling,” Lucinda murmurs. Its loud, now that the crickets are too cold to sing. 

“Who--” Fledgling starts, stops herself. “What do you want?” she demands. She closes the latrine door behind herself and crosses her arms. She looks like Old Eagle when she does-- _just_ like her, the spitting image, and it startles Lucinda a bit, and startles Head Vulture too, as she breathes in hard through her nose, loud in the silence. 

“It’s Little Raven,” Lucinda says, takes a half step forward. Fledgling doesn't move, doesn’t look like she remembers the name, even. “We were coming through the area and we--”

Fledgling holds up her hand, and she stops.

“Little Raven was married to a man who turned up dead weeks ago by her hand.”

“That’s me,” Lucinda agrees. What’s Fledgling playing? Is this like Twin Seagull all over again, a threat of “I’ve seen you on a wanted poster,” is this like Owl-Eagle taking her to task for her sins?

“Why should I want to associate with you?” Fledgling asks. “Whore of Vegas, traitor, adulterer, cannibal.”

“Because we’re tribe,” Lucinda says. God. God. This is what it is. “Don't you want out?”

“Out of what?” Fledgling snaps. “Out of my marriage? My family? My duties? So I can be killed when they catch you and crucify you like the degenerate you are?” Fledgling takes two steps closer, hands at her sides and curled into fists. “Did you swallow the NCR line that all women are slaves and we must all want freed from our ‘bondage?’”

Lucinda feels her hands ball into fists, and she takes a step forward.

“Little Bird,” Head Vulture interrupts, voice sharp. “Fledgling.”

“That’s not my name,” Fledgling says.

“Cut this out.” She snorts, and Lucinda turns to look over her shoulder. “You’ve seen what happens to other women in the Legion, ain’t you?” Head Vulture take a few steps forward, leans heavy on her cane.

“If they make foolish decisions and suffer the consequences, there's no one at fault but them,” Fledgling replies, crosses her arms again. She looks like she did when she was little, arguing her point and certain she was right, and no one could dissuade her. “I like my life here and I don't need rescued or whatever you think you're doing.”

“Oh, they got you young, didn’t they.” Head Vulture takes another step closer. There’s something simmering in her voice, something dark and angry that Lucinda hasn’t heard since she and Swan were yelling at each other over dinner. “Fed you a line about how good you had it to be away from the filthy tribals. Never had to see your mother shot. Owl-Eagle wouldn't let you watch it even if they had.” Head Vulture lowers her voice, and now it’s not simmering, now it’s just angry. “Fed you lies about what makes civilized folks.”

“They weren’t lies,” Fledgling snarls. “We shit in holes and ate wild animals and we had no family lines. That's not civilized.”

“Your mother, your family, has been digging holes for legionaries to shit in for the last fourteen years,” Head Vulture snaps. “She wondered where you went to. She hoped they were feeding you. She prayed at night that you weren’t getting beat like the rest of us.”

They’re close now, maybe fifteen feet between them. Lucinda steps off to the side, tugs her coat closed, holds it there.

“If you won’t come back, you won't, and I gotta tell the woman who popped you out that you’d rather roll over and lick the feet that kicked the rest of us.”

“I’m not going back,” Fledgling says. “I’m telling the centurion and he’ll--”

Head Vulture interrupts, starts a song before Fledging can finish.

“ _Daughter, you were mild and lovely_ ,  
_Gentle as the summer breeze_ ,  
_Pleasant as the air of ev’ning_ ,  
_When it flows among the trees_ ,”

It’s a funeral song--a song for walking away from a body that needs its turn in the food chain. A song for nothing left of a person.

Fledgling gapes, eyes wide, as Head Vulture steps closer, starts to reach out, stops herself. Head Vulture shoves her hands back in her pockets almost-violently, jaw set.

“ _Peaceful be thy silent future_ ,  
_Peaceful in this grave so low_ ;”

Head Vulture’s eyes are intense, and she's scowling, her face twisted up in a snarl.

“ _Thou no more will join our number_ ,  
_Thou no more our songs shall know_.

“ _Youngest daughter, you have left us_ ,  
_Now thy loss we truly feel_ ,  
_Now your mother waits without us_ ;  
_You could all her sorrows heal_.”

Head Vulture turns to head back around the front of the building.

Lucinda glances at Fledgling, tries to think of something to say, and then turns and follows Head Vulture.

Fledgling watches them go. Mouth open. 

Head Vulture pauses at the corner of the building, half-turns to look over her shoulder.

“ _Yet again we hope to meet thee_ ,  
_When this day of fear is fled_ ,  
_Then at home with joy to greet thee_ ,  
_Where no more bonds must we shed_.”

She turns around the corner and Lucinda follows.

***

“We need to leave,” Head Vulture says, halfway up the hill. There's still no sound of an opening and closing door, but it can’t be long now. “There are gonna be legionaries after us as soon as she can rouse ‘em. If we can get down to that gas station, that'll be an okay place to rest for a bit.”

“Let’s see what Mad Dog says,” Lucinda murmurs.

Mad Dog and Drummer are back, resting in their bedrolls, and when Lucinda and Head Vulture come back alone, Burn immediately starts to rouse the others.

“She’s gonna get the centurion on us,” Lucinda says, packing her bedroll away. “We need to leave.”

“You really fucked that one up,” Runner mumbles.

“She bought the party line,” Head Vulture grunts, and starts shoving her things into her own pack. “Nothing we coulda done in a night.”

“Could always come back and shoot the rest of them, kidnap her,” Mad Dog suggests.

“Don’t think that'd help,” Runner says. 

“It wouldn't,” Head Vulture agrees.

Everyone finishes packing as the slam of a door echoes through the silent night.

“You gonna be able to keep up?” Mad Dog asks Head Vulture, who grunts and stretches.

“Yeah,” Head Vulture replies.

“Then let’s go,” Drummer says and leads the way down the hill. Burn is right behind her, then Singer, then Head Vulture, then Lucinda. Mad Dog walks sideways, keeps her gun at the ready, watches behind for legionaries and in front for nightstalkers.

Runner brings up the rear, flaps a blanket out behind herself to sweep away the most obvious tracks in the cracked dirt.

There are two scorpions still out front of the gas station, and Runner and Drummer stand between the scorpions and the rest of the group as they file into the dusty, dingy store.

Head Vulture, Singer, and Burn huddle together behind the counter, Runner sets up her things behind the shelves, so she has a clean line on the door, Drummer sits between the counter end and the wall, and Mad Dog, on seeing everyone arranged, heads back outside.

With a glance back, Lucinda follows her out.

Mad Dog offers Lucinda a boost up onto the roof, and scrambles up after her. She lays flat, watches back up the hill. Lucinda keeps an eye out toward the road.

“What did she say?” Mad Dog asks. “Never heard Grandma talk like that before.”

“Said we were savages and that she'd been civilized by the Legion.” Lucinda fiddles with the mounting ring of her gun strap.

“One of those,” Mad Dog murmurs. “Dunno who’s worse at the end of it all, those sorts or our sorts. Never met a frumentarius who didn't know she was doing some bad shit for the wrong reasons, but hell if we haven't done some real shit because of orders.”

“Yeah,” Lucinda agrees, quietly, and tracks a quintet of nightstalkers out on the flats, the second verse of Head Vulture’s song echoing in her head.

“ _Peaceful be thy silent future_ ,  
_Peaceful in this grave so low_ ;  
_Thou no more will join our number_ ,  
_Thou no more our songs shall know_.”


	20. 153 (Resurrected)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A song for chapter 20: [X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqd7cHbLBG4).

“Lord Caesar, we have two new reports.” Vulpes hands over the two file folders. One is labeled “Cactus Springs” and the other is unlabeled. “The staging location for Lucia’s last assignment has been hit. Most of the slaves were evacuated but wives and children were left alone. There were a few trainees left alive as well.”

“And there was a member of her tribe there?” Caesar squints at the file. 

“Yes. She was...gone. She and the slaves fled east, and we lost them in the mountains.” This isn’t a good thing to admit, but--they did. Oh, they know the hundred square miles she and the slaves disappeared in, sure--and it’s full of boltholes and mine shafts and super mutants. None of the decani want to deal with Jacobstown, especially not as the NCR is pushing back against the western border.

“You lost them in the mountains,” Caesar repeats, and sets the folder down. He fixes Vulpes with a flat stare.

“Yes, Lord Caesar. We have three contubernia attempting to find them-” or they will, as soon as he’s back downstairs to order it “-and two more tracking the trail Lucia and her group left, heading south. They’ll be put on duty to find the escaped slaves, as we have a confirmed location for Lucia.” He points to the other folder. Caesar picks it up, flips it open. It’s a half-dozen handwritten one-page reports.

“The outpost south of Primm,” Caesar murmurs, squints at the reports. “And how was this confirmed?”

“There’s a woman there who was taken in along with Lucia. She was young enough that she was educated and married to a petty officer, without incident. She said Lucia and another woman approached her and attempted to get her to leave with them. They fled into the hills. That was last night.”

“So we can accurately gauge where she is. She can’t travel any faster than we can.”

“Yes, my lord. We’re tracking them right now. If they are within a mile of the road, they will be captured by the end of the day. If not by then, then they will be captured in Cottonwood Cove, as Lucia declared she would make a move on Lanius.”

“I want them brought to me and crucified. The Flatwater tribal, Lucia, Nona Virginia, and that escaped slave from Lucia’s tribe, especially. The others can be killed or brought along as convenient.”

“As you wish, Lord Caesar.”

“This will end in the next week. They've struck blows against us, but they're only a handful of women. How can they hope to stand against us?”

“They cannot, Imperator.”

“In a few days they’ll be hung from crosses for all the Legion to see. I want crosses erected in front of this building. I want all who petition me to see what happens to those who disobey.”

“It will be done,” Vulpes agrees, and bows. This is Lucius’s job, typically, but Caesar has been...slipping, recently. Gone for a moment, eyes unfocused. Squinting at things he used to see easily. Repeating himself. His hands tremor sometimes.

It’s easier to just pass the job along to Lucius after he’s left Caesar’s presence.

Lucius mentioned one night that he suspects the tumor is returning. Lucia was under their control, when it was removed, but she wasn't a doctor, and Caesar is an old man. It could return even if her intentions and actions were pure.

They’ll need to find his replacement, soon, though whether they replace him with a puppet or a leader in his own right still needs to be decided. An infant god-king would be easiest to control, certainly, and easy to spin as a reincarnation, but another adult to take the burden of leadership, give speeches, make decrees, would be welcome.

Caesar hasn't dismissed him, but he’s distracted, pulled away by a conversation two of the praetorian guard are having quietly in the corner.

Vulpes takes his leave without a word, stops in Lucius’s office next door to pass the order for crosses along to him.

***

There’s another girl her age sitting out front of the building. She’s new, still--she’s only been here for a couple weeks. Birdy doesn't know her name, but she looks up when she comes outside.

“Did Siri send you out to get me?” the other girl asks.

“No,” Birdy replies. “I haven’t seen her today.”

“Oh.” The girl looks away, fiddles with the hem of her skirt--Amelia had offered her a pair of pants, but she had declined and asked for a skirt instead. “Aeliana said she might want to talk to me.”

“She’ll probably come find you.” Birdy sits down near the girl--out of arm’s reach, but they could hold hands if they wanted to. “She’s really nice.”

“That’s what Lucia said too.” She unravels a whole thread, wraps it around her fingers before snapping it, rewrapping the longer part, snapping it again, rewrapping--“She seemed nice, but we didn’t talk a lot.”

“We spent a bunch of months working together. She helped me have my baby.”

The baby in question has quieted down, now that they’re out of the loud and chaotic gymnasium. 

“She’s really jumpy,” the girl says. “Why does she have the guard dog?”

“Poorwill said it was supposed to help. I dunno.” Birdy shrugs. June has crawled out of Birdy’s lap, and is picking at the dirt, crumbling clods in her palms. “I don’t know anything about dogs.”

“I--” The girl pauses. “What’s your name?” she asks, instead of completing her first thought.

“Birdy,” Birdy says. “And this is June. She’s named for Calidia’s mom--Calidia’s the lady with the face tattoo.”

The girl nods, scowls out at the dirt like she’s trying to commit the names to memory.

“I’m Valeria,” she says when she turns back. “I’m Tatiana’s daughter. I’ve done all sorts of chores, I keep waiting for someone to tell me to do something here. With my father and the two little girls there was always something to do.” She pulls her knees up, picks at a stray strip of rubber on her homemade sandals. “What do you do all day?”

“I listen to a lot of the old ladies talk.” Birdy folds her legs up under herself. June looks up at her, startled, and then goes back to her dirt clods when she sees nothing has really changed. “Poorwill--she’s the ghoul--and Henny--she’s the one who always whispers--are both really nice. Henny says she’s married to the one old lady who had the cane.”

“She was nice. Talked a lot.”

“Like she didn’t care if you said anything, but not in a mean way.”

“I knew a couple boys who talked the same way. They’d get nervous and they’d never shut up.” Valeria tucks her knees up to her chest, folds her arms around her shins, and rests her chin on them.

“I heard she broke out of Red Springs by herself, while she needed a cane to walk. I don’t think she was nervous.”

“She probably made that up. She seems like she’d make that up just to tell a story.”

“Henny says it’s all true. So do Amelia, and Poorwill, and Swan, and everyone else.”

Valeria snorts.

“No one gets out alone, and especially not if they’re hurt.”

“I still wanna believe she did. Maybe some other people got out too, and we just never heard about it.”

“Maybe. I dunno.”

They lapse into silence. The crickets are loud, and so are the cicadas, and the birds sing, and voices drift out of the open windows.

A dog barks, across the lot, bars and then growls, and Valeria’s head snaps up.

“How many dogs do they have?” she asks, voice strangled.

“I dunno,” Birdy replies, cranes her neck to peek at the kennels. “A bunch, I think.”

“I should go tell Aeliana.”

“That’s…?” Birdy prompts.

“The white lady I came in with. The one with two daughters.”

“Oh.”

“She doesn’t like dogs much. I should warn her about them.” Valeria stands, dusts herself off. “I’ll see you around.”

Valeria heads back inside, leaves Birdy sitting out in the dirt, listening to the dogs bark as June squeals over a particularly satisfying clod of dirt that she places on Birdy’s shoe.

***

The door at the top of the steps is propped open, and there’s a nice breeze coming down the stairwell. Someone must be out--the door doesn’t close well, but it doesn’t stay open like that unless you prop it open, and there’s no one else in the stairwell to appreciate the breeze. She pauses on the landing below the last flight, listens for voices.

It doesn’t take long to catch them--Calidia’s low smoker’s growl, Twin Seagull’s tired-and-worn drawl. She ascends the steps quietly, careful not disturb them.

“My children might still be alive somewhere,” Calidia says, and holds out a pipe and a lighter. Twin Seagull takes it and takes a hit. Henny catches a whiff of--skunk. Ah.

“Saw ‘em kill my sister.”

“Heard mine got blown up in Red Springs. Mom went with her. Died trying to help.”

“Sucks balls.”

They both pause.

“Still hurts like hell, but I’m glad I saw it. No false hope. I knew what happened to her.” Twin Seagull takes another hit, and passes the pipe back. “She rotted away in a ditch in Texas and now she’s a ghost. Maybe I’ll see her ghost someday when I’m out walking. Get my ass haunted by my pissed-off twin.”

“Sometimes I think I see my sister out of the corner of my eye.” Cal takes her own second hit. “And then I turn around and it’s some woman I don’t know, or it’s nothing.”

“Worst kind of ghosts. Get stuck behind your eyes and you see ‘em everywhere.” Twin Seagull pauses again. “Owl-Eagle said it happened ‘cause sometimes ghosts would think you were them, because you were blood, and they didn’t want to let go of being alive, so they’d get stuck on the backs of your eyes if you were the last one to see ‘em, and then never go away. Only happened if they didn’t have a bird to carry them away though.”

“Our ghosts had someone they needed to get back at. You don’t move on if you have unfinished business.” Cal offers the pipe back, and the offer hangs between them.

“No one makes it out of the Legion without unfinished business. Gonna be up to our tits in ghosts if that’s what makes one.” Twin Seagull laughs. Cal takes the pipe back without Twin Seagull taking it again.

“If I turn into a ghost, I’m gonna be paying back favors for the next hundred years. Like some sort of...shitty poltergeist. Wash your clothes and scare off your nightstalkers.”

“Polter-what?” Twin Seagull asks, laughs again. 

“‘S a ghost that likes to throw shit around. Bang on pipes, break dishes, that sort of shit.”

“Haunt the Legion and be good at it,” Twin Seagull suggests. “Could get a lot of mileage out of breaking all their nice ceramic dishes and ripping all their clothes to bleeding rags.”

Calidia throws her head back and laughs--cackles, guffaws, something loud and deep and genuine.

“All those damn scarves shoved in your underwear, hell, it’d stain less noticeably, right?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Twin Seagull scoots closer, starts digging through her pockets until she pulls out a long, palm-width strip of red fabric. “See, look at this, I bled all over this when I got knifed one time and you can't even tell now.”

“When you pulled it out I thought you were gonna tell me you--you--” Calidia continues to laugh, reaches over to bundle the fabric up in her hand. “Fuck. I shoulda sometime.”

“Become a polterghost and do it in the afterlife. You can get away with more ‘cause they can’t do shit to you, ‘cause you’re dead.”

“God, who would I haunt…” Calidia trails off, and she hunches over. Twin Seagull leans on her knees next to her, and the two of them think.

Henny takes it as her cue to leave them be for the night.

***

“Heard you don’t like dogs.” The ghoul woman--Poorwill, Valeria thinks, sorts through the ever-growing list of bird names to find the one that fits--leans in the doorway. She has a mason jar of yellow-gold alcohol, and she takes a sip as she watches Valeria.

“They're not my favorite,” she agrees. She had told Aeliana and Tatiana about the dogs, earlier, and they’d both given her somber nods and looked at each other like they were going to need to talk about it alone. She had left, then, let them get to it. The lady with the bowl cut had asked her for some help moving boxes out of a storeroom, so she’d done that the rest of the afternoon, and now she’s here, still hiding from having to talk to other people.

“You worried about that at all?” Poorwill asks, and steps into the room, immediately steps out of the doorway. It’s a way out. It’s obvious, it’s telegraphed. It’s appreciated. “With Siri having one around all the time?”

“I don’t think I’ll need to spend a lot of time with her.” Valeria shrugs. “As long as I don’t have to clean up after it, I don’t care.”

“Mmmkay. Was gonna give you my nice little conflicting needs speech, but you sound like you’re good. You want some wine?” She holds out the mason jar. “It’s made of apples.”

“Thank you, but I’ll pass.” She gives Poorwill a tight smile, and Poorwill nods, shrugs, and takes another sip.

“Alright. You ever want the ‘sometimes some folks need different things than other folks, and there’s nothing wrong with that’ speech, you know where to find me.” Poorwill raises her mason jar, and turns and leaves the storeroom. She’s almost out of sight when Valeria calls after her.

“Wait!”

Poorwill takes a couple steps backward, cocks her head to indicate she’s listening.

“Did you come talk to me alone for a reason?”

Poorwill sticks out her bottom lip, scowls, and shrugs.

“People talk more when they’re alone. And it’s embarrassing when you have to say some shit in front of a whole big group. Not gonna do it to the new folks. You got any other questions?” Poorwill sloshes her wine around as she talks, to punctuate what she’s saying. 

Valeria considers for a moment, tries to remember if she has any questions. Most of them are small questions, day-to-day questions. Stuff she doesn’t need to ask until it comes up. Poorwill waits patiently.

“Lucia said you _all_ have bird names.”

“Yeah, we do,” Poorwill agrees, and takes a sip.

“What’s her bird?”

“Raven, and shrike.”

“What’s--my mother? Tatiana?”

“Coming out of the Legion, probably a vulture for sure. Might be some other more, but I don’t know here well enough yet to say. Can’t say for you, or Aeliana, or a lot of other new folks, either. Ask me in a month or so.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“You better,” Poorwill agrees, and laughs. She winks. “If that’s all the questions you have, I’m gonna go round up the rest of you young’uns I can get to drink without feeling bad about rotting your delicate developing brains; feel free to join us out by the tank. Might be a few others who wander in; you can’t keep a party from most of the folks here.” Poorwill waves with her free hand, and heads back down the hallway.

***

Henny's bedroom door is still open a crack, light spilling out. So is Swan’s, and Poorwill’s, and there’s laughter from Poorwill's bedroom. There are the quiet sounds of conversation from Henny’s.

Calidia scuffs her feet on the floor, pushes Henny’s door open.

Siri is sitting on the double bed, her legs stretched out, her dog curled up on the pillows, and Henny is sitting at the desk chair.

“Come sit down,” Henny says, and gestures for Calidia to fully enter the room.

She does, and close the door most of the way behind her, only leaves it cracked. She looks at her places to sit--the desk behind Henny, on the bed next to Siri--and opts to sit next to Siri, who scoots closer to her dog without a word.

“So she was going to be a priest?” Siri asks, when Calidia has sat down and arranged herself.

“She was.” Henny’s nose is wrinkled and she's a split second away from laughing. “Ask her to sing sometime. Still knows all the Reaver songs too.” Henny leans forward over the back of her chair. “But. Nothing funnier than her, fourteen, like--” Henny sits back enough to pout, stick her chest out, put her fists on her hips, “--squawking at Mister Lamore about ‘That’s not how that gun works! The pulse generator is reversed in your diagram!’ They were _pissed_.” Henny laughs, and Siri giggles. “I would be too.”

“I almost expected worse,” Siri says. She practically lights up the room with her smile. Calidia’s seen her smile before, but it’s not common. “After her argument with Swan, I would have thought she was still like that even when she was younger.”

“Said, she grew into it. Always a little like that.” Henny squints, indicates a pinch with her fingers. “More now.” She drops her hand, rests her forearms across the back of her chair. “Calidia. You have stories?”

Calidia startles a moment, picks at the pills on the blanket as she thinks.

“My sister and I, when we were little, we liked to put snakes in the beds of the boys we ended up marrying. She had a knack for catching them.” She glances up at Henny, then looks away. “One time she came back with a rattler, and neither of us knew what to do with it now that she had it.”

Henny giggles.

“Anja got a whole family of rattlers under the woodpile, one year. My grandmother ended up being the one to come with the shovel.”

“It was my aunt, but she ended up coming with a shovel too,” Calidia agrees.

“Did you eat them?” Henny asks.

“Waste not, want not,” Calidia replies.

“Of course.” Siri nods. “Not the best exotic meal I’ve eaten, but it was easy meat, at least.”

“What was best?” Henny asks. 

“My father hunted a deathclaw once, and the whole town ate for three days. It was a long roast, and we all ate like we weren't living hand to mouth for those few days at least.” Calidia pulls her legs up, grunts gently as its difficult. She doesn’t look up at Henny. “Nowadays I prefer brahmin when I can get it, or bird when I can’t.”

“You eat birds?” Henny asks, gasps, and presses a hand to her chest.

“Only the really annoying ones,” Calidia says, and smiles. She still doesn't look up.

“That’s okay, then,” Henny grumbles. “Siri?”

“I’ve had radbuffalo a few times. We split it between three families for months, once. Anja got a quarter buffalo, another time, and that lasted us nearly a year.”

“Radbuffalo is good. Not common here. Could get it. Poorwill would like the trip.”

“I might join up,” Calidia says. “I could use the trip too.”

“Make it a whole hunting party. Enough hunters here, now.” Henny grins big, nods. 

Siri and Calidia both smile at her.

***

Amelia hands Siri a half-filled bushel basket of potatoes and a potato peeler. In one corner of the kitchen, next to the to-compost pile, Twin Seagull already has the same setup, potato held in her left hand, peeler held awkwardly in her right. Siri settles on a folding chair next to her, and Twin Seagull nods a greeting.

“Is there something going on?” Siri asks. “Amelia said they needed help, but not what for.”

All the windows are open, pots steaming on the stovetops, loaves of bread set on racks, the radio on the top shelf turned on and blaring. Most of the women move around each other without excuses or fumbling, in some sort of easy, unspoken rhythm.

“I think they just wanted a party and home-cooked food for everyone.” Twin Seagull shrugs. “They do that sometimes.”

“And why are we on potatoes?” Siri asks, quieter.

“You wanna muscle into the middle of that?” Twin Seagull nods her head at the mass of people between the island and the counter, several of whom are carrying pans above their heads, several of whom are carrying pots at chest level, and the rest of whom are standing at their workstations, cutting vegetables, tenderizing meat, kneading bread, mixing things in bowls. “‘Cause I don’t. I’ll peel potatoes all damn day if I don't have to worry about elbowing someone in the face.”

“Point taken,” Siri murmurs, turns back to her potatoes. They both lapse into companionable silence. The peeler is comfortable in her hands, and she's on her third potato before Twin Seagull picks up her second.

“Hey, you wanna sing?” Twin Seagull asks.

“I don’t know any of the songs, really. Not yet.” Siri laughs a little, nervous.

“Oh, I can start. That’s not a problem.”

“Do you all just, know these songs?”

“I don’t know all of ‘em, but I know my favorites, yeah. There’s a lot of time out on the road, you get good at them.” Twin Seagull hisses as her peeler slips, and she skims a finger. Siri immediately reaches over, takes her hand, squeezes to see if any blood will well up out of the wound. When it doesn’t, she gives Twin Seagull her hand back. Twin Seagull smiles and goes back to peeling her potato without comment. “I know all of Head Vulture’s favorites, ‘cause she liked to lead the singing and we all just let her. So d’you wanna sing?”

“Sure,” Siri agrees, and focuses down on her potato. This room isn’t very big, and it’s already chaotic and noisy, and while she’s getting more comfortable, she still doesn't want to draw attention in a room this full.

Twin Seagull clears her throat, throws her shoulders back, and starts singing.

“ _My sister’s gone to see that land_ \--”

The whole room immediately hushes, though the radio still plays.

“ _My sister’s gone to see that land_ \--”

The radio clicks off.

“ _My sister’s gone to see that land_ \--”

Even the noise of dishes quiets for just a moment.

“ _To wear a starry crown_.”

There’s a sudden surge of noise

“ _Away over yonder_ ,” sings part of the room, mostly high voices.

“ _Away over yonder_ ,” sings another part, mostly low voices.

“ _Away over yonder_ ,” sings a third part, mostly middle-tone voices.

“ _To wear a starry crown_ ,” sings the whole room.

There’s a baited-breath pause before a younger woman--she’s part of the tribe, Siri has a vague recollection of her, but no name--begins to sing.

“ _My mother’s gone to see that land_ ,” she sings, and more people join in.

“ _My mother’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _My mother’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _To wear a starry crown_.”

The refrain bounces around the room again.

“ _Away over yonder_ ,  
 _Away over yonder_ ,  
 _Away over yonder_ ,  
 _To wear a starry crown_.”

Another woman, older, long and thin and her head shaved down to stubble, a vulture tattooed on her chest, starts another verse. 

“ _My Raven’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _My Raven’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _My Raven’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _To wear a starry crown_.”

The whole room sings the verse, every voice raising as they turn back to their tasks.

The refrain comes again, and this time Siri joins it, quietly. It ends with the same hovering breath before someone else takes the next verse.

“ _My Eagle’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _My Eagle’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _My Eagle’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _To wear a starry crown_.”

Then again.

“ _My wife she’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _My wife she’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _My wife she’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _To wear a starry crown_.”

They keep singing, even as they work, and it's easy to fall into an easy rhythm with the words. They go through more birds--”Owl,” “Magpie,” “Seagull,” a few straggling voices including Twin Seagull’s on “Pigeon”--and other people--”daughter,” “aunt,” “brother”--and there’s a hesitation that hangs for just a moment longer at the end of it.

Siri takes her chance, swallows down her fear for just a moment, knuckles tight as she grips her peeler and still-skinned potato.

“ _My teacher’s gone to see that land_ ,” she starts and breathes deep at the end of the line, terrified that no one else will sing with her.

People do--less than half, but enough she can’t pick out individual voices.

“ _My teacher’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _My teacher’s gone to see that land_ ,  
 _To wear a starry crown_.”

It’s easier to sing along with the refrain, as loud as she can.

“ _Away over yonder_ ,  
 _Away over yonder_ ,  
 _Away over yonder_ ,  
 _To wear a starry crown_.”

Someone else volunteers “student” and more women sing along with that, but Siri doesn’t listen much past that, something swimming dizzy behind her eyes and making it hard to hear. Her throat feels full, even as she sings along with the refrain over and over again.

The song peters out eventually, and someone else starts to sign something else Siri has never heard, and the kitchen continues to sing.

“See?” Twin Seagull laughs. “Not hard to get them to sing. They’ll do it if you offer any tune at all.”

“Yeah,” Siri agrees, and studies the potato in her hand. “Thank you for starting it.”

“It all ends in singing sooner or later.” Twin Seagull laughs again. “I can teach you a few, if you wanna start it next time.”

Siri turns to look at Twin Seagull. She’s only a few years older, but she’s rougher around the edges than what Siri sees in a mirror--a few more small scars on her face, arms, hands, deeper wrinkles around her eyes, her shoulders lopsided like her spine is slightly scoliotic, broken fingers and a lump on one forearm from a badly healed fracture. She’s smiling, though, all the way up into her eyes.

“I’d appreciate it,” Siri finally says. “Lucy gave me the book, a long time ago. I haven’t spent enough time reading it.”

“When Head Vulture gets back, we’ll get a whole circle together.” She turns back to her potato, leans over far enough to gently bump her and Siri’s shoulders together. “Have her lead. It’ll be a party.”

“I look forward to it,” Siri murmurs, can’t keep the smile off her own face.


End file.
